


The Great Protector (Is That What I’m Supposed to Be?)

by JLMonroe1234



Series: Michelle Jones & Peter Parker [6]
Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Babysitter Michelle Jones, F/M, Journalist Michelle Jones, Mentioned Gwen Stacy, Michelle Jones Needs a Hug, POV Michelle Jones, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Trying His Best, Peter Parker is a Mess, Peter Parker is a father, Peter’s still Spider-Man, Protective Peter Parker, Single Parent Peter Parker, The Blip didn’t happen in this, Young Parent Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:07:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLMonroe1234/pseuds/JLMonroe1234
Summary: “But enough about that,” Peter said finally. “That’s not why we’re here. I texted you because I really do need a babysitter.”“Lucky you. Here I am. Why don’t you introduce us?” Michelle nodded toward the baby.Peter’s demeanor shifted quickly; he smiled and slowly rearranged himself so Michelle could see the infant asleep against him. “This,” he said, “is my daughter. April.”———————-Peter Parker has things to do. So he hires a babysitter. Told mostly from Michelle’s POV.
Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & His Kid That I Made Up, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Michelle Jones & Peter Parker [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589194
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	1. That Michelle Jones

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in so many short spurts that I guarantee you half of the times and dates don’t line up. So just pretend this happens in a vacuum and time isn’t real. Enjoy. :)

Michelle Jones liked to keep busy. Her need for action had presented itself in different ways over the years; in high school, she did enough extra curriculars to make any student’s head spin. In college, she worked several babysitting jobs for different families while maintaining her place on the Dean’s List. After college and beyond, her schedule, while more geared toward an adult, was about the same. When she wasn’t working her day job as a journalist at the Daily Bugle, she was picking up extra shifts at her favorite Manhattan coffee spot, Midtown Roast.

When shifts weren’t available or she needed a change of pace, she switched to babysitting. She had no kids of her own but found that she enjoyed watching other peoples’. She’d always liked the idea of being someone parents could rely on, someone they could trust to take care of their child when their circumstances meant they couldn’t do it themselves. 

She found most of her business through flyers she’d pinned to the community bulletin board in Midtown Roast. It was simple, just advertising an “Experienced Babysitter With Reasonable Rates”, her name, and several pull-off tabs at the bottom with her phone number printed across the front. Clients text or call, they set up an interview, and things proceed from there. 

Michelle didn’t necessarily  _ need  _ the Midtown shifts, or the babysitting gigs. Sure, the extra money was fantastic. A nice way to supplement the meager wage awarded to her by the Bugle. But she also found that she was happiest when she had something productive to do. Michelle Jones was not built to sit around. 

She’d just finished a full day at the Bugle and was waiting for the train that would take her to Midtown when her phone buzzed in the bottom of her bag. In her quest to dig through her belongings and retrieve the device, she managed to accidentally pull out both of her earbuds as well as knock the bookmark out of the novel she’d been in the middle of reading. With a quiet swear and false calm, she ignored the stares of other commuters on the subway platform and shoved her arm into the depths of her bag. Her hand reappeared with her phone clenched tightly in her grasp. 

The buzz had only been a text, but it was from a number she didn’t have saved. 

_ Hi! I saw your babysitting flyer in Midtown Roast. Was wondering if you’d be free sometime soon to set up an interview.  _

Michelle exited her messages and scrolled through her phone calendar. She had some openings in the coming weeks, several weekend and evening spots on days when Midtown Roast was either overstaffed or she simply hadn’t bothered asking to be put on the schedule. She closed the calendar and started typing out a response to the babysitting inquiry. 

_ Sure. Sounds awesome. If I could just have your name and days you’d be free for the interview, I’m sure we could work something out.  _

He gave her his name and availability and they set a meeting for the following Friday night at Midtown Roast, just after both of them got off work. She hadn’t asked what he did for a living— that was the sort of question she usually asked during the interview. But his name, Peter Parker, sounded oddly familiar. 

Michelle spent the next two days racking her brain for any information pertaining to her new client. Some part of her felt like she knew his name, had been very familiar with it at some point, but every time she thought she was close to identifying him she turned up with nothing. 

But Michelle was an investigative journalist at heart as well as in occupation, no matter how underpaid, and was determined to satisfy her curiosity. She finally found her answer in one of her high school yearbooks. 

There was a Peter Parker in her graduating class. High school Peter had been a loose friend for a while; they were both on the Academic Decathlon team. But aside from some casual conversation during school hours and a few forced partner labs in chemistry class, the two of them never really hit it off. He was a bit spastic, honestly. Michelle appreciated someone who could be cool and collected when the situation called for it, and Peter Parker was far from it. 

Peter was always a bundle of nerves, constantly rushing off to who knows where and doing who knows what at inconvenient times. He even missed one of their out of town Academic Decathlon meets because he said he had to stay in NYC for his Stark Industries internship, which half of the AcaDec team thought was total bullshit. Michelle was inclined to agree. She thought he might have been in some sort of trouble either with the school or the law, but nothing ever happened to prove her theory correct. And they were never close enough friends for her to feel comfortable asking. 

A quick internet search revealed little about how Peter Parker lived now. He had no social media except for an Instagram, which had minimal followers. He hadn’t posted since last year. His most recent picture, uploaded thirteen months ago, was a selfie of him and a pretty blonde girl Michelle didn’t recognize standing together on a bridge in Central Park. It was a sweet picture. Peter looked happy. 

Michelle took a big mental step back. She tried to never have expectations about a client before meeting them, as it could affect the way she cared for the child. She reminded herself that this client might not even be  _ that  _ Peter Parker. Peter Parker wasn’t exactly an uncommon name. Maybe it was someone else.

* * *

By the time Friday night rolled around, Michelle was tired and a bit cranky. Last week she’d submitted one of her biggest stories yet to J. Jonah Jameson, the company editor, and after a full seven days he’d finally gotten back to her. The gist of his response; the story and the info were good, groundbreaking, even, but the story wouldn’t be published. Couldn’t be published. Why? It was a story containing interviews with ex-Oscorp employees, all claiming to have been fired because they refused to set up unethical, uncertified medical trials and use clinical study participants as test subjects. 

None of the ex employees had ever come forward or gone to the police— most of them figured there was no point. Oscorp was too powerful, and they were just a few voices in a company with thousands of employees who were willing to lie to save their own skin. It wasn’t easy tracking them down or convincing them to come forward. 

But after ages of clandestine conversations and quiet reassurances, they finally obliged. It was the first shred of proof in a long-running public theory that Oscorp wasn’t as perfect and by-the-book as they wanted to appear. Michelle had dedicated weeks, months, cultivating the information she’d gathered. She took time away from other stories, worked off the clock to pull her piece together. And it was being scrapped because her editor was afraid of telling the truth to the public and suffering the consequences. 

Telling the truth was why she became a journalist in the first place. Michelle believed that the people of New York should know what’s happening in their own city, no matter how twisted. It was only fair. 

Michelle’s shift at Midtown ended a couple hours before close. The shop was relatively empty by the time she’d hung up her apron in the back room, and only Midtown Roast’s frequent fliers were left. She recognized Mr.Delaney, an attorney that liked to work late but hated being at home, leaning over several files spread out on a table and nursing a cup of black coffee. Madam Toulane, a self-proclaimed psychic who lived down the street from the shop, had her feet propped up on a worn couch in the corner and delicately sipped a cup of herbal tea as she read a book titled  _ The Art of Palm Reading.  _ A high school age kid, Miles Morales, was reading a comic book at the café bar. He’d drained his cup an hour ago, but he was so engrossed in the pictures in front of him that he hadn’t bothered to ask for a refill. 

These people and their coffee loving peers made Midtown Roast the sanctuary it was. All were from different boroughs, different walks of life, but they each made Midtown diverse and special in their own way. Michelle had had the pleasure of interacting with all of them at some point or another, and she valued her relationships with all of them as well as the other café regulars she saw on a daily basis, no matter how superficial their interactions may be. 

Michelle took a seat in a well loved leather armchair near the center of the shop, a spot with a great view of the lit street outside the cafe and passersby, and removed her novel from her bag. She didn’t know exactly how long it would take Peter Parker to arrive, and she figured she might as well cram in some relaxation time before he showed up. 

She had just finished a chapter and begun a new one when the front door opened, letting in street noise from outside and a gust of frigid winter air. Michelle pulled her coat tighter around her and turned up her collar against the chill.

In came a man, probably in his early twenties, if Michelle was seeing him properly in the café’s dim lighting. He was as bundled up as one would expect a pedestrian to be in this weather, head covered with a sock hat and a thick puffer coat protecting his upper half. His gloved hand was wrapped protectively around his front and resting on a small bundle of fabric Michelle hadn’t noticed before. 

As the man walked forward into the shop, Michelle was able to get a better look and discovered that the bundle of fabric was not, in fact, fabric, but a baby girl. Her little face was barely visible underneath her light pink insulated snowsuit. The hood was up and cinched carefully around her head, just enough to keep her warm but not enough to smother her. Michelle couldn’t see her hands, as they were tucked into the built-in mittens of her suit, but she could imagine they were curled up against the cold. 

Despite the cold and the mild chaos of the coffee shop, the baby was dozing against the chest of the man holding her, her weight supported by the baby carrier he had carefully strapped on over his coat. 

The man began readjusting the small blanket he had draped over the baby’s back, paying no mind to the café’s other patrons as he made his way to the front counter. “Hello, hi,” he said to the barista, a little breathlessly, “I’m looking for Michelle Jones.” 

Michelle perked up at the mention of her name. She cleared her throat and stood from her seat. A man with a baby looking for her? It was probably her potential client. She realized quickly that she’d never given him a description of herself, so he probably had no idea who he was looking for. A professional mistake on Michelle’s part. “That’s me,” she said aloud, steeling herself for the incoming introduction. 

What she did  _ not _ steel herself for, though, was the surprise she felt when the client pulled his sock hat off and she had just enough time to realize that  _ oh my god, it really is Peter Parker from high school, _ before he was stepping forward and offering her his degloved hand. “Miss Jones, hello. Nice to meet you.” 

It took all of Michelle’s willpower to not stare at him outright. This was definitely the Peter Parker who’d attended Midtown School of Science and Technology, but the proof was only visible in his face and his goofy, crooked smile. The rest of him was so drastically different that Michelle thought she might be hallucinating. Maybe her long hours and excessive coffee consumption were finally getting to her. 

“We’ve met,” Michelle said blandly. Peter’s hand was warm in comparison to hers. She tried not to think about it too much. 

Peter tilted his head to the side and squinted, eyes analyzing Michelle to determine whether she was being serious. “We have? When did we—  _ oh!  _ Oh man, I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking. You’re  _ that  _ Michelle Jones!” 

Michelle scrunched up her nose. “ _ That  _ Michelle Jones?” 

Peter took her look of distaste in stride. He laughed thickly, then realized the baby in his chest carrier had started squirming around and he quickly reigned himself in so she wouldn’t wake fully. “From high school. Sorry, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. It’s been a long time.” 

“About five years, give or take. But hey, a lot can change in five years.” Michelle stole another glance in his direction. When did he get so  _ tall?  _ He was taller than her, now, which was odd, because she had him beat by several inches at the end of their senior year. He must have hit a growth spurt. 

Michelle cleared her throat, trying to get over her shock, and motioned to the armchair across from her own. “Why don’t you take a seat? We can get started.” 

“Sure, sure. Sounds good.” 

Each of them took their respective seats and tried to get comfortable, but Michelle was having no luck. The clasp of her bra was digging into her back, it had been all day, and she just wanted to go home so she could take it off. She was still wearing the boots she wore to the Bugle and her feet were killing her.

She figured Peter would have been just as miserable as her, considering he was carrying a baby on his chest and a diaper bag on his back, but he swung the backpack off with calculated ease and held the baby through the carrier as he lowered himself to the cushion. He looked like he knew what he was doing. 

“So how’ve you been?” He asked casually. “Last I heard you were off at Harvard.” 

“Yep. Graduated last year. Journalism.” Her mom had  _ not  _ been pleased when she found out Michelle was going to Harvard and wasn’t majoring in some sort of science.  _ Why bother going to Harvard if you’re going to get a useless degree? Look forward to a lifetime of unemployment.  _

She’d been right, to a degree— journalists weren’t exactly in demand, and few of the available jobs paid well. But Michelle’s Harvard credentials definitely hadn’t hurt her during the job search process. And besides, Michelle enjoyed what she was doing. It was meaningful work. That’s all that mattered to her. 

Michelle cleared her throat, mentally spurring herself forward. “What’re you doing nowadays? Where’d you end up?” 

“Went to ESU for chemical engineering. I was direct admit to Stanford, was gonna head to the west coast, but I just couldn’t do it. New York’s home, you know?”

Michelle did know. The four years she spent in Cambridge attending school were unexpectedly rough. She’d never been away from home for so long. 

“I work at a research lab, now. Octavious Industries.” 

“I’ve heard of it. Apparently you’re making some major steps in cybernetic limb replacement for amputees.” 

Peter huffed a laugh. “We’re trying, anyways. There’s only so much you can do on a budget that relies purely on city grants.” 

There was tension, there, hidden beneath the sarcasm. The way he stared distantly down at the baby strapped to his front made Michelle suspect that he’d be looking for better employment if he had the option. But whatever he was doing, he was doing it for that child. 

“But enough about that,” Peter said finally. “That’s not why we’re here. I texted you because I really do need a sitter.” 

“Lucky you. Here I am. Why don’t you introduce us?” Michelle nodded toward the baby. 

Peter’s demeanor shifted quickly; he smiled and slowly rearranged himself so Michelle could see the baby girl asleep against him. “This,” he said, “is my daughter. April.” 

Michelle blinked once. Twice. 

She didn’t know what she was expecting. Peter had asked for a sitter. That implied that he had a child. He walked into Midtown Roast with a baby carrier and a diaper bag. It should have been obvious that April was his. But hearing it confirmed aloud was something completely different. Geeky, awkward little Peter Parker from high school had a  _ baby.  _ He was a  _ father.  _

Motherhood had been the last thing on Michelle’s mind since she graduated college. She was more interested in establishing herself in the workforce than starting a family. Usually when baby fever hit she could find herself a poopy diaper to change, and she’d be immediately reminded why domestic life just wasn’t for her. Not yet, anyways. 

But seeing Peter with April, seeing the way he tenderly wrapped her blanket around her and readjusted her coat hood over her tiny ears, reminded Michelle that not everyone thought the way she did about their futures. They didn’t have schedules or benchmarks. Life just  _ happened _ , and they rolled with the punches. 

“She’ll be five months old tomorrow. She’s sweet as can be and fairly easygoing as far as babies go, but she can be a real brat when she’s tired.” Despite the jab at his daughter’s attitude there was no dislike in Peter’s eyes as he looked down on her. Only love. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need a sitter?” 

Peter took a moment too long to reply, almost as if he were embarrassed. “I’ve had some late nights at work recently. The daycare closes at 5:30 and sometimes I’m late for pickup. They’ve threatened to give her place to someone else if I’m late again, which  _ cannot  _ happen, because I can’t afford to not work, and that’s the only daycare in Manhattan that’s in my price range and has a decent reputation.” 

Michelle was well aquatinted with the daycare struggle, as she’d heard other parents complain about finding a business they could actually trust to watch their children. Nothing was free in New York, especially not childcare. 

“So you’ll be needing me for evenings, mostly.” 

Peter nodded. “And the occasional weekend day, if you’re available. But that’s not a sure thing.” 

“And what about April’s mom? Is her work schedule similar to yours?” 

Michelle didn’t know why she asked. She made it a habit to never ask about the other parent unless they themself were at the interview or explicitly mentioned by the present parent. It was her way of avoiding divorce or death conversations when the present parent didn’t want to talk about it. 

But Michelle messed up, this time. Because the second she mentioned April’s mom, the light left Peter’s eyes like a switch flipped off. The gentle smile on his face hid his grief well, but there was pain in the way he wrapped his arms around April just a little bit tighter. “April’s mom passed away a few months ago.” 

April was waking up, now, tiny lips smacking as she surveyed the new environment outside her carrier. She seemed relaxed. She had no idea Michelle had just brought up her dead mother. Her eyes, beautiful big brown eyes surrounded by the prettiest little lashes, looked just like her dad’s. 

“Look who’s awake,” Peter said with minimal cheer, the previous conversation topic averted, much to Michelle’s relief. He reached around his front to gently poke at April’s leg. One corner of her mouth turned upward and Michelle’s heart melted. 

Peter had been an absolute mess in high school, always stepping on his own glasses and losing homework assignments. Even before sophomore year when he  _ really  _ fell off the deep end for reasons no one could decipher (Susan Yang thought he became a male escort), he was completely disorganized. Scatterbrained at best and a train wreck at worst. Michelle never thought he’d be able to take care of a goldfish, much less a child. 

But seeing him with April, watching him pull a little tub of baby lotion out of the diaper bag and dot a bit on the tip of her nose because it was chapped from the bitter wind outside the café, Michelle knew something had changed in Peter Parker. Something big. He wasn’t that frizzled kid that missed Academic Decathlon meetings anymore. 

It didn’t take long for Michelle to make a decision. “If you wouldn’t mind sending me your typical work schedule, I think we can get something figured out. If you want me to watch April, that is.” 

Peter looked back up from his daughter and tried to refocus on the task at hand, but April had her little gloved sausage hand wrapped around one of his fingers and he was having a hard time focusing. “O-of course. Yes. I definitely do. I’ll get you that schedule.”


	2. Seven Flights of Stairs

Peter sent her his tentative work schedule a few days later as well as the days and times he’d like her to come over and watch April. He took extra care to emphasize that she could choose whatever babysitting shifts she wanted, and he didn’t expect her to show up every time he requested her, Tuesdays and Thursdays and the occasional Saturday-Sunday combo. 

_You can pick as many or as few of those days as you want. It’s completely up to you. I’m flexible. Seriously. No obligation._

Peter had matured exponentially in many ways, but he still had the frantic speech pattern of someone afraid of inconveniencing others on his behalf. It was endearing, in a way, but Michelle also wished he’d just stand up for himself and get to the point. If he was asking for a babysitter four days a week, he was likely working some serious overtime at the lab. He was probably exhausted and in over his head. But of course, he was afraid to ask Michelle to come when he needed her, even though he was paying her. 

_How about I start Tuesday and we can figure it out from there?_

Michelle didn’t have to wait long for a response. Peter wasn’t the type to delay texting back for the sake of seeming carefree. _Sounds awesome. I know for a fact I’ll be working late Tuesday, so you’ll have to pick April up from daycare._

A pause. Three little dots bounced on the screen, disappeared, then appeared again. 

_Hope that’s okay._

Michelle had watched babies before, and she was no stranger to picking clients’ kids up from school or daycare when a parent couldn’t. But she had yet to carry a five month old baby around the streets of Manhattan. Suddenly she was imagining herself speed walking down the sidewalk in a pair of thick soled tennis shoes, shoving her way through day commuters and tourists, April strapped to her chest like some sort of very questionable vest. 

Maybe she wasn’t as comfortable with the idea as she thought. 

_Totally fine,_ she typed back. _Just let them know I’m coming._

Michelle left the Daily Bugle on Tuesday and headed straight for Sunshine Isle Daycare. She was more than happy to leave her day job behind; usually, a day at the Bugle meant some amount of exhilarating and important work had been accomplished. But the day had drug on this time, eight endless hours of backspacing and watching her cursor blink sadly in the middle of a blank Microsoft Word page, and it showed no signs of speeding up until Michelle cranked out her new article. 

It was a fluff piece about a charity event that the Bugle covered every year. She’d been given the assignment after the Editor in Chief trashed her Oscorp exposé, and she had a feeling being given the charity assignment was the company’s way of telling her to lay low until they were sure no one else had gotten their hands on _her_ piece. 

Whatever the reason, she was bored out of her mind. Going to work felt like waking up and taking the 4 train to her own funeral. The idea of leaving the office and getting to make herself useful was just too appealing. When 4:30 rolled around, she wasted no time grabbing her coat and gloves and booking it toward April’s daycare. 

When she arrived, she was once again impressed by April’s ability to nap in chaotic environments. The oldest kids at the daycare, probably around four or five years old, were all playing a massive game of tag. They tripped over toys and each other as they ran around the daycare’s main play space with their fingers outstretched, trying to run up and poke their friends. Some of the younger ones were planted in front of a tv playing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the corner. Most of the babies were grouped together in their own little partially gated-off area of the room, some in bouncers and swings and others crawling around the space looking for things to chew on. 

It took Michelle a moment to locate April through the lobby window. She was in the gated off area in a bouncer, seat gently bobbing back and forth as she slept. Her little lips were parted slightly. She wasn’t wearing a hat or a hood like she had been at Midtown Roast and Michelle spotted a fine layer of light blonde hair on her head. Peter Parker was a brunette; the fair trait had likely come from April’s mother. 

The pick-up line in the lobby was moving quickly, and after only a few minutes it was Michelle’s turn at the window. A tired looking daycare employee approached her from behind the counter, a random crying toddler tucked under one of her arms. “Child’s name?” The employee asked without looking at her. 

“April Parker.” 

The employee looked up this time. “You’re definitely not April’s father.” 

“I’m a sitter. He asked me to pick her up. He should have called and noted the change.” 

The employee looked at her from under raised brows. She put the toddler town somewhere behind the counter, where they continued to cry out of sight, and started typing on the keyboard of a nearby desktop computer. “Ah. Yes. He called this morning. There’s a note in April’s file.” 

Michelle subconsciously let out a deep breath. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Peter had forgotten to call. It was the sort of detail he’d always overlooked in high school. _Sorry I missed AcaDec practice, I had the Stark Internship. Sorry I turned in my half of the chem lab late, I just have so many things going on and-_

Sophomore through senior year had been a never ending cycle of excuses and half-assed explanations from Peter Parker, whether they were for unreported absences or forgotten assignments or late projects. Michelle hated to admit it to herself, but she’d just sort of assumed that he’d still be the same irresponsible guy that she’d known when she was a teenager. She hadn’t really interacted with him since graduation, so she had no reason to think he’d changed. 

But maybe, just maybe, he should be given a bit more credit. He graduated college, he had a job, and he was raising a baby on his own. Despite the circumstances he seemed to be doing well for himself so far. 

“I’ll just need your ID,” the employee said. Michelle dug it out of her bag and handed it over and waited with impatience as the other woman took her time recording Michelle’s info and scanning the card into the computer. The daycare environment was starting to grate on her already frazzled nerves. The toddler behind the counter still hadn’t stopped crying. The kids who had been playing tag were now in a piled heap on the playroom floor; apparently they’d all tripped over one another. Some of the other parents were talking way too loudly on the phone, and a select few looked at Michelle like she was crazy or didn’t belong or both. Michelle was ready to grab April and _go._

“Alright, we’ve got you on file as one of April’s primary pick-up people, so you shouldn’t have issues from here on out. Let me go grab her and you can be on your way.” 

Michelle stepped to the side while the employee went into the baby area to gather April and her things. Michelle surveyed the room while she waited. A parent had come for the crying toddler behind the front desk, and a different employee lifted him by the armpits and passed him over the counter like a sack of potatoes. “Go on, Preston,” she said, “your mom’s here. She came back like she does every day. You can stop screaming now.” 

Preston’s mom looked apologetic as she slipped the sleeves of his coat over his arms and walked him out the front door. Apparently hits fits were a normal occurrence. 

“Alright, here we go.” 

The previous employee was back with April in one arm, her car seat carrier in the other, and her diaper bag slung over a shoulder. April did _not_ look happy about being woken. Her eyes were still half shut and there was a definitive pout on her lips. 

Before Michelle could prepare herself the employee was shoving April into her arms and setting the car seat and diaper bag down in front of her. “Have a good one,” she said plainly, then walked away to reclaim her spot behind the front desk. 

Michelle looked at the baby in her arms, suddenly lost. 

April blinked up at her with those big brown eyes, like, _well c’mon, lady, let’s go home._

Peter and Michelle had conversed a fair amount through text since they’d decided Michelle would watch April. They did a little more catching up, asking about each other’s lives and whatnot. It was exponentially less awkward than any other time they talked in high school. Maybe it was because they weren’t face to face. Maybe it was because they’d both grown up a little and could hold a conversation without breaking out in a nervous sweat. 

Most of their communication, though, had been regarding April. Peter was surprising detailed with his instructions without being overbearing. _I try and have her asleep by nine. Babies are babies, though, and they don’t like to listen, so don’t sweat it if it’s a few minutes earlier or later. Do what you think is right. All her clothes are in the dresser in my room. Diapers are next to it. After you feed her just throw the bottles in the sink, I’ll take care of them. She can play with and/or gnaw on anything she wants in the apartment except for the furniture, my books, things she could swallow, or sharp objects. Otherwise it’s all fair game. She only likes to face forward in her carrier when we’re at the park. Otherwise there’s too much to look at and she gets overstimulated and starts screaming bloody murder. Oh, and do not let her grab your hair. She’ll rip it right out of your head. The little devil has quite the grip._

All of Peter’s notes and advice were flooding into Michelle’s head at once, and she was trying to keep herself from being knocked over by the force of it all. “Uh, right. Yeah. Okay.” Michelle tried to not look too clueless as she dug through April’s diaper bag, misplacing bottles and toys and packs of wipes as she looked for the baby’s hat and winter coat. She wasn’t in her snowsuit today, just a flannel onesie with the cutest little Minnie Mouse shaped rattles sewn to the toes. Michelle would have been cooing if she wasn’t so focused on the task at hand. 

Finally she located the hat and coat and carefully slid each piece into place. By the end April looked like a mini marshmallow, all dolled up in a polka dot puffer and a little black hat with mouse ears that matched the foot rattles. Michelle wondered with a pang if April’s mother had bought this particular outfit, or of this was Peter’s creation. 

Strapping April into the car seat carrier was another situation entirely. It was usually an easy process; insert child, adjust straps, good to go. But it was obvious that the baby wasn’t used to the seat and was _not_ pleased to be forced into it. For some reason Michelle recalled Peter never taking taxis in high school— he preferred to walk everywhere or take the bus or train. She imagined that his habits hadn’t changed since then. April was probably used to walking everywhere, pulled flush against Peter’s chest instead of alone in her car seat. Michelle cursed herself for asking Peter to leave the seat instead of the chest carrier. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” Michelle said quietly, carefully putting her arm under the carrying handle and swinging the diaper bag over the shoulder of her opposite arm. “It’s only for a little while.” 

But babies have no concept of time and or language, so April chose that moment to let out the most pitiful little whine Michelle had ever heard. Her lips were wobbling and her drowsy eyes were glassy. She was about to throw a major fit. 

A frigid gust of wind blindsided Michelle as she stepped out of the daycare and onto the sidewalk. She could only imagine how cold it was for April; she pulled the car seat cover down as much as possible to try and block the chill. 

New York wasn’t foreign land to Michelle; she had lived in the city most of her life. Navigating the busy streets of Manhattan was second nature. Michelle was an expert at weaving in and out of foot traffic, bending herself so she wouldn’t bump shoulders with other commuters. She’d never had to try and do it all with a diaper bag and baby, though. Her off-kilter equilibrium had her dizzy and clumsy. She just barely managed to not swing April into the pedestrians at the crosswalk or patrons stepping out of restaurants after their early dinner reservations. She quickly developed a newfound respect for Peter and how easily he seemed to move with his arms full. Carrying a baby in NYC was _hard._

Michelle finally got lucky after a few blocks and managed to hail a cab barreling down the street. They made a sharp turn and cut across several lanes of traffic to meet her at the curb. 

She threw the cab door open and placed the baby seat inside first, making sure everything was situated and bucked before she climbed in after it. The cabbie gave Michelle a dirty look through the rear-view mirror— April hadn’t stopped crying. 

He didn’t acknowledge it verbally. Just asked Michelle where she was going. Michelle gave him the address Peter sent her the day before and watched as they pulled away from the curb and onto the avenue. The cab smelled like cigarettes and stale coffee, and Michelle was excited to just get to Peter’s apartment and relax a little. 

They didn’t get far, though, before Michelle heard New York’s ever present chorus of car horns grow louder, something flew across the windshield, and the cabbie slammed on the breaks. 

“ _What the hell? C’mon, man, I’ve got places to be!”_ Michelle watched open-mouthed as the driver cursed at a familiar red and blue figure standing next to the cab in the middle of the road. 

The cabbie rolled down his window. “You vigilantes. Look at my windshield! It’s filthy now!” 

Spider-Man tipped his head back dramatically. Despite the expressionless lenses of his mask, Michelle could imagine he was rolling his eyes. He didn’t seem to notice or care about the incoming cars laying on their horns so he’d move out of the way. Most just gave up and swerved around him. “Your windshield was already filthy! If anything, I should be complaining about how dirty my suit is, now, all because of your grimy cab.” 

Michelle was so busy watching the argument unfold (it was more of a one-sided argument, really; Spider-Man didn’t seem mad, just entertained) that it took her a moment to notice the relative silence within the cab itself. April had stopped crying. Her eyes were wide and interested. She almost seemed excited, like she was looking for something. 

The cabbie must have realized his critiques of Spider-Man’s methods were falling on deaf ears, becaus he waved the superhero away with his hand and started rolling up his window. “Damn mutants,” he mumbled under his breath. 

Just as he began making his way down the street again, something thumped against the roof of the car. His cursing started anew as the top half of Spider-Man’s mask appeared from above. He was bent upside down over the side of the vehicle, looking in through the window above April’s car seat. His sudden appearance startled Michelle and the back of her head thumped against the glass behind her. 

Living in New York meant that there was always a chance of seeing the web-slinging hero, but lately sightings of him had become few and far in between. He was still active, still out helping people when it really mattered, like when police couldn’t handle a situation or he was able to make it to the scene of a tragedy first, but the amount of time he just spent out and about was shrinking exponentially. Some people thought he was about to go into retirement. Many said his real life had just gotten busy, and Spider-Man was becoming less of a priority for him. A select few claimed he had a terminal illness. One small faction said he was losing sight of his _true goal_ and was about to flip the tide and become a super villain. 

Michelle didn’t know which was true. And to be honest, she didn’t really care. Spider-Man had been helping NYC for almost ten years. If anyone deserved a break from the action of it all (as well as the criticism), it was him. 

That being said, Michelle had _not_ expected to run into him on her evening commute, much less an evening commute she wasn’t used to taking. Why he was paying their cab in particular so much attention, Michelle didn’t know. 

Spider-Man didn’t try to enter the cab; just looked in at April and wiggled the fingers of his gloved hand in her direction. April giggled and raised her arms toward him. 

The tilt of Spider-Man’s chin changed; he was no longer looking at April, but gazing up at Michelle. She waved awkwardly. He offered her a two finger salute and then was gone, webs making contact with nearby buildings as he swung up and away. The cab wiggled on its wheels from the force of his exit. 

“I hate this city,” the cabbie said, then put his foot to the gas pedal and took off down the road. 

* * *

Peter’s apartment was a modest one bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen. It was situated on the seventh floor of a red brick building across the street from a bodega and several small hometown businesses; a dry cleaner, a pizza joint, a pawn shop. Michelle got a whiff of melting cheese as she pulled April’s car seat from the back of the cab and made her way into the lobby of the building. 

There was a front desk to the left of the space, but no security or building manager behind it. The desktop computers on the counter were dark, a thin layer of dust on the monitors and keyboards. It looked as if no one had bothered to man the lobby for quite some time. 

Otherwise the place seemed pleasant enough. There was a seating area to the right, some mismatched but comfortable looking couches surrounding a large coffee table. Several tenants sat around it, apparently engaged in riveting conversation. Michelle listened in as she made her way to the elevator at the back of the lobby. 

“I swear to you,” an older man in a threadbare sock hat said, “Spidey is branching out. A friend of mine saw him in Brooklyn today.” 

The woman sitting on the other end of his couch scoffed and took a sip of her coffee. It was a purple and white cup, the trademark colors of Java Joe’s, Midtown Roast’s main competitor. “Spidey wasn’t in Brooklyn today. I saw him in Midtown on my way home from work. Guy swung right over the sidewalk. Almost concussed me.” 

Spider-Man _had_ been in Midtown— he’d started an argument with Michelle’s cab driver. And he’d definitely been doing some reckless swinging. The woman was right. Whoever had claimed to see him in Brooklyn was full of shit. 

That happened, sometimes. False spidey sightings were surprisingly common. Someone would post on Facebook claiming that Spider-Man saved them from being hit by a bus in Queens, and someone else would tweet that he was responding to an apartment fire in The Bronx at the same time. It was borderline impossible to know where he really was unless the news was broadcasting live footage or you saw him yourself. 

Michelle pushed the _up_ arrow next to the elevator and frowned when the button didn’t illuminate. A quick survey of the closed elevator doors revealed a small yellow sticky note stuck right in the middle. _Elevator broken, sorry_ was scrawled in sloppy writing. 

She looked down at the car seat on her arm. The crease of her elbow was already burning from where the handle was digging into her skin through the sleeve of her coat. The thought of climbing the stairs up to Peter’s unit was entirely unappealing. “Well, shit.” 

April babbled senselessly for a moment. Michelle looked down at her. “I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t tell your dad.”

* * *

Seven flights of stairs later, thighs burning and arms aching with the weight of April and the diaper bag, Michelle stood in front of Peter’s apartment. 7C shined dully in the middle of the door in flaking gold paint. The unit was at the end of the hall, the nearest window looking out onto a fire escape and then the building’s back alley below. 

Michelle gently placed the car seat on the floor, trying to ignore the sweat beneath the back of her coat, and groped around the frame of the door. Peter had told her there was an alcove in the wood. True to his word, Michelle’s fingers slipped into an alcove near the top and grazed against something cold and metal. She used the tip of her fingernail to slide the key out of its hiding place and unlock the door, pulling herself and April into the partial darkness of Peter’s living room. The fading winter light coming through the family room window was just enough for Michelle to find the lightswitch and fully illuminate the space. 

Peter’s apartment was small and modest but undeniably homey. The living room and kitchen were divided by a change in flooring and a counter, old wood giving way to cheap tile where the breakfast bar started. The living room was obviously used often; a well-loved sofa with a couple flattened throw pillows was positioned in front of a tv and coffee table, all over a large threadbare area rug, pacifiers and spare baby blankets covering most of the table’s surface. April’s bassinet was situated next to the couch and within reach of whoever might be relaxing nearby. A fully stocked bookcase containing both classics and stories Michelle had never heard of sat next to the window. 

Past the couch was a small hallway that led to a bathroom on the left and a single small bedroom on the end. The door was open; Michelle could see an unmade bed in one corner and April’s crib directly next to it. A combination changing table and dresser was across the room. The clean dark wood of the crib rungs and dresser drawers contrasted drastically with Peter’s bed, a mattress and box spring situated on a simple metal frame. It was obvious where most of Peter’s money went. He wasn’t the type to splurge for himself when he had a child to take care of. 

Michelle switched on the living room tv-- she had never been a fan of silence, especially in unfamiliar environments-- and started working her way down the short list Peter had given her. April needed to be changed, given a bottle, and then probably changed again. Give her some time for her stomach to settle, and then its tummy time on the playmat in the living room for about a half hour. After that, the time between Michelle’s completion of the list and Peter’s expected arrival time was free rein for her to take care of April however she deemed appropriate.

“Alright,” Michelle said, tickling under April’s arms and smiling as the baby giggled and wiggled around on her play mat, “it’s just you and me, kiddo. The night is young. The apartment is our oyster. Let’s go crazy.” 

April just gazed at Michelle as she pulled one of her toys, a cartoonized rubber squeaky toy of Spider-Man, toward her and started gnawing on it with her empty gums. She looked perfectly content to just stare at Michelle with her big brown doe eyes and slobber all over her own hands. 

“So I guess you’re not quite at the “let’s play ball” stage. Fair enough. We’ll make do.” 

Michelle made her way to the bookshelf. The bottom shelf was half full of baby books, an array of picture books and fairytales and short stories. The other half of the shelf held scrapbooks. Michelle didn’t look at any of them— that felt a bit too personal. 

The other shelves were definitely Peter’s. Series sets were grouped together, but the standalone novels were scattered about with no apparent method of organization or reason for placement. Nothing was alphabetized. There wasn’t even a common genre. Michelle spotted history and non-fiction and religion and science fiction and more. There was a lot of science fiction. If the wear on the spines was any indication, he read and re-read those ones the most. 

Michelle slid a worn copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ out from between _A Tale of Two Cities_ and _Baking for Dummies_ and carried it back to April’s playmat. “We’re gonna educate you, April. Get you started on the good stuff.” 

And she did— Michelle started from the beginning and read the story aloud as she went. She couldn’t help but grin when she used altered voices for different characters and April would howl with laughter at the super high or ridiculously low tones. 

They stayed that way for a little while, Michelle narrating and April listening, until the baby in question started getting fussy. Tummy time was supposed to be over, anyways, so Michelle figured April was just tired of being on the floor and tried to pick her up to carry her to the couch. The change in position only made her more upset and her whines grew in volume. The rattles sewn to the feet of her onesie jingled as she kicked her chubby legs around. The sound quieted after Michelle swaddled her carefully in a thin blanket, one arm out. The swaddle seemed to help a little, but she was still agitated. 

Michelle checked her diaper. Clean. She’d been fed about an hour ago, so she shouldn’t be hungry. The clock on the kitchen stove said it was only 6:30. They hadn’t been home long, and Peter wasn’t due to come back from the lab for a couple more hours. 

Michelle’s phone buzzed where she’d left it on the kitchen counter. Pulling April upward to lay partially against her chest and rest on her shoulder, Michelle secured her hold on the baby and used her free hand to check her phone. It was an unread message from Peter. 

_Sorry, forgot to remind you. This is usually when April starts getting fussy. Either try and get her to doze on your own or turn on the news. J. Jonah Jameson’s voice puts her to sleep._

Michelle recalled Peter, back at Midtown Roast several days ago, saying that April was a bear when she was tired. She _had_ been woken up in the middle of her late afternoon nap at daycare. She was probably just sleepy. 

But Peter wanted her to use J. Jonah Jameson as white noise? The man’s normal talking voice was something akin to a minor explosion. His newscaster voice was roughly equivalent to the sound of a sinkhole opening up and swallowing all of New York. Michelle had worked for the man for about a year now, but even she still wasn’t used to the way his voice could be heard from across the office. What baby would find that pleasant? 

Michelle readjusted her grip on April and typed out a response with one hand. _Seriously? Your daughter’s a masochist._

Peter sent several laughing emojis. _Something about that’s man’s mustached demeanor comforts her. I can’t explain it._

Michelle snorted. She was glad no one but the baby was around to hear it. 

_If it works, it works, I guess._

Peter didn’t respond, and Michelle assumed he’d gone back to work. It was the first thing he’d said to her all day, aside from texting her earlier to make sure everything had gone alright with April’s pickup from the daycare. Peter Parker was really running himself ragged. She wondered how he’d gotten by with working so much before he hired her. Sure, he’d said he left her at daycare late sometimes, but he couldn’t do that every day. Who was watching the baby? 

Michelle dug around in the basket on the coffee table for the television remote. It was buried beneath a couple, thankfully clean, spare diapers and between the pages of an out of date copy of the Daily Bugle. She was satisfied to see that that week’s front page byline had her name printed beneath it in a thick black ink. 

She pointed the remote and switched on the tv. The channel was already set to the news, but she knew Jameson’s Crime Watch evening special would be on in a few minutes. For the time being Michelle moseyed slowly around the apartment, bobbing on the tips of her toes as she went, hoping the repetitive motion would soothe the baby in her arms. 

_“Goooood evening, citizens of New York, and welcome to Crime Watch with me! J. Jonah Jameson! Editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, and seemingly the only person in this city...Who is willing to tell the truth!”_

Michelle paused a few feet away from the monitor. To her disbelief, April’s cries were tapering off. She used the remote to kick up the volume a few notches. 

_“Today’s truth, my faithful viewers, comes through a conduit formed of man mixed with menace— the arachnid, the mutant, and so called “hero” himself. Spider-Man!”_

April was almost completely calm, now, her cries reduced to pitiful whimpering, each of her puffy little breaths warming Michelle’s shoulder with a short whine. 

_“Earlier this evening, Spider-Man was caught at the scene of a bank robbery in Tribeca. No surprise there, am I right? Isn’t the Spider always somewhere he shouldn’t be?”_

_Reports claim he swung in and out of sight, each time seen with a different civilian in his sticky grasp. Many say he was keeping innocents out of the fight, removing vulnerable parties, trying to limit casualties. Sure, fine. I guess, in theory, this_ could _be true. But do you know what I think? I think Spider-Man was getting rid of eyewitnesses! The best way to keep your crime life secret is to make sure no one’s seen you in action.”_

Jameson kept talking, spouting endless nonsense about Spider-Man and his antics and how much of a menace he is. Michelle had begrudged respect for Jameson; first and foremost, he was her boss. But he had also managed to keep the Daily Bugle, a newspaper company, up and running in a digital age. That was no easy feat. 

But aside from the respect, Jameson was a pain in the ass. He was a drama initiator at worst and a conspiracy theorist at best. He rarely had a good thing to say about anyone, much less Spider-Man. 

Michelle might have also been bitter toward him, though, because Jameson was the one who shut down her Oscorp exposé. She thought that if anyone would have wanted to expose a conspiracy it would have been him. She’d been mistaken. He was just as afraid of Norman Osborn’s influence as everyone else. 

April hadn’t made a noise in several minutes. A quick look from Michelle’s peripheral vision told her that the baby had finally fallen asleep. Michelle very carefully tiptoed across the living room and as gently as humanly possible, laid April down in her bassinet by the couch. She shifted a little and Michelle winced in anticipation of the incoming crying fit, but April simply took the pacifier Michelle slid into her mouth and didn’t move again except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest under her onesie. 

The baby finally asleep, Michelle cracked open her laptop and made herself comfortable on the sofa. She still needed to finish her charity piece for the Bugle. She knew if she didn’t do it now, it would never get done. 

She sat and stared at the buffering symbol on her computer screen for several seconds before realizing she wasn’t hooked up to the WiFi. A brief survey of the living room and kitchen revealed no clues as to the whereabouts of the WiFi router. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent Peter a quick text. 

_Could I have the WiFi password?_

Peter didn’t respond for several minutes. His message was shorter and less linguistically complex than most of his other ones. He must have been busy. Michelle felt bad for bothering him. 

_Don’t remember it. On the back of the router box in my room._

Michelle had been afraid of that. She’d been trying to avoid going into the bedroom all evening and had succeeded up until this point. Logically, Michelle knew that most of April’s belongings were back there, so if she kept babysitting she’d have to enter Peter’s personal space at some point. But something about it felt rude or intrusive. Peter, to her, despite now technically being her boss, was still the geeky little kid she’d met in high school. She didn’t know him beyond their teenage academic relationship. They weren’t even friends on Facebook. She didn’t know whose fault it really was, but they’d never bothered keeping in touch. Running into him again was a complete coincidence. She didn’t feel like she had the right to hold his daughter, much less enter his room. 

But April was asleep, Peter wouldn’t be home for a couple hours, and Michelle had work to do. So she shoved her laptop aside and tentatively made her way to the bedroom. 

It took Michelle a few seconds of sliding her hand around on the wall to find the light switch. Once the room was illuminated it looked largely the same as it had when Michelle first walked into the apartment. But now she was close enough to see it in detail; or the lack thereof. 

Peter’s bed covers were basic, blue. There was a single Star Wars poster on the wall above April’s dresser and a small collage of photos pinned to the plaster above Peter’s bedside table, which held a lamp and a singular picture frame. Other than that the walls were barren. Michelle’s curiosity won over her discomfort, and she approached his bedside to look over the photos. 

The ones on the wall had no particular theme. Michelle recognized a few people in the photos; Ned Leeds, his arm around Peter at a bar, looking much more physically mature than he had in high school. The two must have stayed friends. Peter’s Aunt May standing over the kitchen stove, smoke billowing up from whatever was in the skillet on the burner. She was laughing. A snapshot of a young Peter, maybe ten years old, sitting in a fishing boat with an older man. Probably his Uncle Ben. There was even a picture of Peter with Tony Stark, Peter holding some sort of certificate upside down and Stark making bunny ears behind his head. 

That one surprised her most. Almost everyone on the AcaDec team had thought he was lying about the Stark internship, using it as some sort of feeble excuse for his absences, but it looked as if Peter had really known Tony Stark. Maybe even been close with him. Michelle wondered how Peter felt when Stark passed away a few years back, after that fight with the Avengers. If he’d grieved. The Avengers hadn’t lost before, not until Thanos showed up. Luckily they’d managed to stop the alien before he did any real worldwide damage, but they’d lost Tony Stark in the process. 

Upon closer inspection Michelle realized that the framed photo on the bedside table was actually a Polaroid, the picture glued to a slightly larger black background and sealed between two small panes of glass. The picture showed two people, Peter and the blonde girl from his Instagram page. She was in a sparkly little dress, a red solo cup of something in her right hand. Her left hand was wrapped around Peter’s back, holding him close. He was kissing her on the cheek. Her eyes were squinty, the force of her wide smile driving her cheeks upward. Peter’s hair was longer than it is now. It curled around his ears. 

His arm was around the girl’s waist as he kissed her. His own drink, held haphazardly in his left hand, was dangerously close to spilling on the floor. They looked happy. Really, genuinely happy. 

Michelle’s eyes lowered to the wide part of the polaroid’s white border, just below the photo itself. Scrawled with black marker in an untidy hand was _Peter and Gwen, NYE at ESU. Senior Year._

There was a symphony between the two of them that Michelle could read in their body language. They worked well together. Really cared about one another. Probably loved each other. 

Michelle recalled looking at April, seeing Peter’s brown eyes and goofy smile but not knowing the origin of the baby’s fair hair, delicate cheeks, curved lips. The more Michelle looked at the grainy photo of Gwen and saw how her hair shone under the camera’s flash, how her bottom lip was just a bit bigger than the top, Michelle was starting to see the resemblance. This was almost undoubtedly April’s mother. The mother April would never remember, because according to Peter, she’d died only a couple months after April was born. 

Suddenly Michelle felt as if she’d stumbled upon something horrifically intimate. She wasn’t supposed to be here, in this room, in Peter’s space. She had no right. 

WiFi password almost forgotten, Michelle hastily found the router box on the floor in a nearby corner. She snapped a picture of the password on the back with her phone and switched off the bedroom light, quickly making her way back to the living room. 

April was still sound asleep in the bassinet, one arm sticking out of her swaddle. She looked blissfully unaware that she’d be growing up without a mother. 

Michelle threw herself into her work. The charity event piece was as boring to write as she thought it would be. But Peter’s apartment was quiet compared to her own (she had seriously rowdy upstairs neighbors), and the whole place smelled vaguely and pleasantly of baby soap, and it was easy for her to find her center and crank out a decent chunk of the article. By the time Michelle heard keys wriggle in the front door lock, she’d considerably minimized the amount of work she’d have to do for the next few days. 

Peter walked in around 9:00, looking tired and a little out of it. He shrugged off his coat with a quiet groan. Michelle winced when he dropped his keys loudly on the breakfast bar, but April didn’t even flinch, just kept breathing deeply. 

“Hey,” Michelle said to break the silence. 

Despite having not greeted her when he walked in, Peter didn’t look surprised to see her on the couch. “Hey. Sorry it’s so late. Big project at the lab. Otto’s kinda going crazy over it.” 

“Otto. Otto Octavious? I knew you worked for him but I didn’t realize you worked with him directly.” 

Peter nodded, absentmindedly sorting through the small stack of mail he’d carried inside. “I’m the only one that does. Octavius Industries is just the two of us, basically. Unless you count the night janitor.” Apparently finding nothing of interest in the mail, Peter took it all and dumped it in the kitchen trash can. “City grant money doesn’t allow for a lot of extra help, you know?” 

“Sure, makes sense.” 

Peter made his way from the kitchen to the bassinet next to the couch. The tired slackness of his face replaced itself with a genuine smile as he stood over his sleeping daughter. “She wasn’t too much trouble?” 

Michelle shook her head. “Not at all. Got kinda fussy near the end, but I don’t think her last nap at daycare was very great.” 

He sighed deeply. “It never is.” 

And suddenly the peace in the apartment was broken, April’s startlingly loud cries filling the space. Peter had her up and in his arms in an instant, bobbing her around as he paced the living room. Her pacifier had fallen to the floor and Peter didn’t bother grabbing it. “She’s not in her jammies under the swaddle, right?” 

Michelle had to hold back a giggle. _Jammies?_ She managed to contain her laughter. “No, I’m sorry. She fell asleep before I could change her, and she looked so peaceful…”

“Happens all the time. No worries.” April was still crying, but her wails were becoming less shrill and more consistently drawn out. Peter glanced over at the clock on the stove. “No matter when she goes down for the night, she always wakes back up around this time. I usually just change her clothes and everything after I feed her.” 

Michelle watched with mild fascination as Peter seamlessly made his way through the kitchen, April still crying against his chest. He measured out water and formula, dumping it into a bottle and plopping the concoction in the bottle warmer with the grace of someone who’d done it hundreds of times under the same circumstances. “Thank you for staying so late, Michelle. You’re really helping me out. Finding a good sitter in the city is so hard. It’s nice having someone I trust here with her.” 

“You trust me?” 

The words were out of her mouth before Michelle could stop them, and she didn’t realize how ridiculous they sounded until they were already out in the open. Of course he trusted her. He trusted her to pick up his child from daycare, take her home, feed her, change her. He had an awful lot of trust in her, apparently. 

Peter tilted his head and chuckled, like he didn’t quite understand her. “I mean, yeah. Should I not?” 

“That’s not what I meant-“

“I know. I’m messing with you.” The bottle warmer beeped, and Peter pulled the milk out. With practiced ease he put his finger over the tip of the nipple and shook it a few times before readjusting April in his arms, cradling her close to his chest with her head in the crook of his arm as he fed her. “Having known you in high school helps. I know we weren’t close by any means, but anyone who knew you could tell you worked hard.” 

The comment, while probably just an observation on Peter’s part, was oddly complimenting. Michelle had always given a lot of effort to school and work and knew that her dedication would pay off in the long run, but hearing that her peers had noticed that behavior felt surprisingly good. 

“I’ve also just got a thing about people,” Peter said. “Don’t know how to explain it. A sixth sense, I guess.” He huffed a laugh at his own comment, apparently thinking of some sort of joke only he was in on. “But I knew it after we talked in the coffee shop.” He paused. “You wouldn’t steal my kid. I don’t think.” 

Michelle had to laugh this time. The comment was so out of left field considering the topic of conversation that it caught her by surprise. Something about it put her at ease enough to jab back. 

“I don’t know. I might have to, at the rate you’re paying me. I might keep her as collateral.” 

Peter smiled, then looked like he would have facepalmed if he had any free hands. “Oh! Your money! I’m sorry, I completely spaced. It’s in the left pocket of my coat if you want to grab it.” 

His jacket was slung over one of the stools behind the breakfast far. It was a simple gray puffer, the same one he’d worn at Midtown Roast. Michelle hadn’t noticed the tiny tears in the cuffs, or the little white feathers poking out between the seams on the back. Her eyes were drawn to the minor flaws as she dug around in the side pocket until she felt the bumpy texture of dollar bills. 

As she grabbed the money and pulled it out of the pocket, several small objects fell out and bounced across the kitchen floor. 

Michelle immediately bent to retrieve them before they could roll away. “Shit. I’m sorry,” she said, scurrying around to grab the dropped items. From the clang they made when they hit the tile Michelle had assumed they were coins, but by the time she’d collected them all she realized they were tiny cylindrical vials, each made of a metal cage with a glass viewing window. They were about the size of a quarter and little thicker in circumference than a pencil. All of them were filled with a sticky white substance, less opaque than Elmer’s glue and not quite as thick. If Michelle’s eyes weren’t fooling her, the name _Oscorp_ was branded into the metal caging in microscopic block letters. 

Michelle straightened up from the floor and turned back toward the breakfast bar to put the objects back in Peter’s coat pocket, and almost directly bumped heads with him. 

“Geeze, Parker, you move like a ghost.” 

Somehow, in the time it took Michelle to pick up the cylinders, he’d readjusted April so her bottle was wedged between him and her blanket and stood upright without him holding it. He was holding his free hand out toward her expectantly. She dumped the cylinders into his waiting palm. 

“Guilty as charged. I’ll work on it.” He squeezed one of the vials between his index finger and thumb, glancing at it before shoving it and the rest of the vials into his back pocket. “Part of my project at work. Must have accidentally taken them from the lab. It’s a bad habit. I brought home an entire flask set once. Not sure how that happened. Also fused the internal wiring component for an ultra advanced prosthetic to my wrist watch once, but that was more out of curiosity than anything. All I had to do was _think_ about setting an alarm and my watch would start beeping-“ 

“Peter.” 

“—Yes?” 

“I’m gonna go now.” 

“Right. You probably should. I wouldn’t want to keep you.” He set April’s bottle, now empty, on the kitchen counter and made his way to the front door slowly while Michelle gathered her things. By the time she’d slipped her coat on and was ready to go, the door was open. The chill from the hallway leaked inside the apartment and Michelle shivered. “Do you want me to walk you to the train station? I know it’s late.” 

Michelle stopped dead in her tracks. Most of her _dates_ didn’t offer to walk her to the train station, much less any of the people she babysat for. Especially when they’d have to lug a baby along with them to do it. Logically she knew he was just being polite; an escort to the train station at this time of night didn’t sound too bad. But Peter had just gotten home from a long day at work and hadn’t even given himself time to settle in before making sure his babysitter got a safe ride home. It was touching. It also reminded Michelle how much Peter already had on his plate. The Polaroid of him and Gwen on his bedside table flashed behind her eyelids.

“No, no. That’s okay. I’m gonna grab a cab. But thank you, I appreciate it.” One of April’s chubby little hands was hanging out of her swaddle. Michelle brushed across the back of it with the pad of her thumb. “I’ll see you guys Thursday, then?” 

Peter blinked, almost as if he hadn’t expected her to come back. “Uh, yeah. Sure. That would be awesome.” 

“Great. I’ll see you then.” 

Michelle walked out into the hall and toward the staircase, not looking back the entire time lest Peter still be standing in the doorway and she ends up making things even more awkward. 

* * *

Once April was changed and had a clean pair of pajamas on, Peter put her to bed in her crib. He knew she’d be awake again in a matter of hours, but he was still looking forward to climbing in his own bed and knocking completely out until April started shrieking again. 

He was _exhausted._ He’d been exhausted for the last five months, thanks to April, but the last three had hit harder than the first two. Because he was doing it all without Gwen. 

He tried to not dwell on how much he missed her. When he did he ended up mopey and it always put April in a bad mood. She could feel it when he was hurting, Peter knew she could. Babies were intuitive about that sort of thing. He never wanted to upset her. 

But he would see the way the fine golden hair on her head stood straight up on the morning, or the curve of her Cupid’s bow, and all he could think about how much April looked like her mother; a mother she would never get to know. All because of him. 

Peter leaned against the kitchen counter as he waited for his toast to cook. He’d been four seconds from hopping into bed before realizing he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and if he wanted his bruised ribs to heal, he needed calories. The bank robbery earlier that evening had been _brutal._ The thugs were like they always were— dense and lacking common sense, but very violent and not afraid to throw a punch. There’s only so many times Spider-Man can dodge before he takes a hit, and this one happened to land high on his left side. It hurt to breathe. 

He surveyed the kitchen while he waited. The place was a mess; dirty bottles stacked up next to the sink, toys everywhere. He’d been getting behind on the house work since he started patrolling again. 

Sitting idly on the breakfast bar were the web cartridges Michelle had accidentally pulled out of his coat pocket. He couldn’t believe how careless he’d been. He’d run out of time at home the day before and elected to refill the cartridges at the lab— Otto was out for the day at some sort or conference, so Peter had the place to himself. Many of his refills were attached to the belt of his suit or in his web shooters. He meant to bring the spares home and lock them up somewhere safe but ended up going straight from the lab to the back robbery and never got the chance. 

It was too late, now. The deed had been done. Peter just had to hope Michelle bought his flimsy “forgot to leave them at the lab” excuse. He’d improved himself and Spider-Man in many ways over the years, but his excuses never got any better. 

“One, two, three,” Peter mumbled under his breath, counting the web cartridges as he stowed them one by one in a rarely-used drawer in the bathroom. He stopped counting once he hit five. He frowned. He always made and stored his cartridges in pairs. There should be six spares, not five. 

But his exhaustion won out over his confusion and he carefully shut the drawer, trying to stay as quiet as possible. He’d probably just missed one of the cartridges on the kitchen floor. Or Michelle hadn’t knocked _all_ of them out of his coat, and the last one was still in his pocket. Whatever the case, he was too tired to think about it. 

* * *

The dim light of the cab wasn’t much to go by, but Michelle had read the word engraved on the metal cage of the vial over and over enough times to be sure of its validity. 

_Oscorp._ Peter Parker, an employee of Octavius Industries, was carrying around vials of _something_ from Oscorp. Why? 

Michelle learned a lot about Oscorp while writing her exposé on the corporate giant. More specifically, she learned about Norman Osborn. Him and Otto Octavius had been on bad terms since they had a business deal go awry years ago. They hadn’t had a nice thing to say about one another since. Michelle couldn’t imagine that Octavius would use Oscorp lab equipment in his own facility. So why did Peter’s “work project” come in Oscorp packaging? And what even _was_ the project? What was inside the vials? 

Michelle tucked the vile into the zipper pocket of her bag. Her curiosity was peaked. But she had to admit to herself that she was going a little nuts over some random vials. The Oscorp story had been on her mind so long that she was seeing conspiracies where there probably weren’t any. Besides, Peter was too busy to be up to anything suspicious. He could barely make it to class in high school. Now he was working full time and taking care of a baby on his own. There was no way he had anything else going on. 


	3. This Train Is Bound For Glory

Michelle watched April two or three days a week for the next several weeks. 

She’d always liked babysitting, but she never realized how much she looked forward to watching April in particular. She’d even stopped taking shifts at Midtown Roast so she’d be free when Peter asked if she was available. She always said yes, of course. It had become the highlight of her week. Michelle’s version of leisure. It was still work, really, but it was rewarding work.  _ Fun  _ work. 

Sometimes it was frustrating. April was more or less an easy baby; except for the fact that she was completely and totally unlike  _ other  _ babies. Sure, she ate, she cried, she pooped, she napped. But everything else about her was straight up  _ strange.  _ She was soothed to sleep by loud noises, her favorites ranging anywhere from J. Jonah Jameson’s screeching voice to car horns that could be heard from the street even though Peter’s apartment was closer to the back alley. She wasn’t a fan of her car seat and found no solace in car rides like many babies did. She didn’t mind the cold and loved wearing shoes. Her favorite story for Michelle to read to her was The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- she always stared at Michelle with her big brown eyes while she read it aloud. (It wasn’t exactly a story for a baby, but Michelle justified it by reminding herself that April was too young to remember any of the specifics of the story.)

April was also  _ in love  _ with Spider-Man; as in love as a baby could be. Any time Michelle was watching the news and the spandex-clad hero swung across the screen, April would start babbling like crazy and opening and closing her little fists like she could grab Spidey right out of the television and pull him toward her. Her favorite toy was a rubber figurine of Spider-Man with a squeaker in the middle. Michelle was pretty sure it was meant for a dog, but April didn’t seem to mind. 

Michelle learned more and more about April every day. Sometimes she found herself zoning out at work on babysitting days, wondering what the now six-month-old would surprise her with that evening. 

But everyone had bad days, including April. And April’s bad days often turned into Michelle’s bad evenings. Michelle would sometimes be left alone from the moment she got off work to 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening, doing everything in her power to soothe an upset infant. On the days when nothing could calm April down, not even Jameson’s voice or a warm bottle or Michelle walking her around the block endlessly in her carrier, Michelle would sit with her cradled in her arms on Peter’s living room floor and just let her cry herself into exhaustion. Those nights were the worst, because April’s agitation always put Michelle on edge. She felt like she’d done something wrong. Then she’d go from worried to mad, fuming internally over the fact that this was  _ Peter Parker’s  _ job. This wasn’t Michelle’s baby. This wasn’t her apartment. She was giving her own spare time to take care of someone else’s child. Maybe April wouldn’t be so upset if her own father was home with her for a change. 

But Michelle always calmed down quickly after remembering that if Peter had the choice, he’d probably choose to be home with April opposed to working like his life depended upon it. He was doing it all alone; working full time, raising a child, grieving over the loss of Gwen, if Michelle was correct in assuming she was April’s mother. All only a year out of college. He had a tremendous load to carry. The complications considered, she was happy to help him out. The fact that she was getting paid didn’t hurt, either. Though Michelle sometimes wondered where he even got the money to pay her. It wasn’t like he had cash to spare. 

Reconnecting with Peter (to some degree; they weren’t exactly hanging out) was also a bonus. They’d ceased pretty much all communication after high school graduation and went their separate ways. They were never exactly close, their relationship as peers, classmates and AcaDec teammates keeping them at the acquaintance level more than anything else. Neither of them had a great excuse to keep up with the other during college and after. But seeing him again, seeing that even though he’d grown in stature and maturity he was still the same old scatterbrained Peter Parker, made Michelle appreciate fate and its sense of humor. How funny was it that she actually looked forward to seeing Peter now, a guy that used to get on her nerves with his sketchy demeanor and persistent tardiness. Now she looked forward to seeing him walk through the door of his apartment and straight to his sleeping daughter in her bassinet. It melted Michelle’s rock solid heart every time. 

Michelle didn’t realize how deeply ingrained Peter and April were in her life now, though, 

until she was walking around Target one day and found herself unconsciously browsing the baby aisle. Peter by no means did a bad job dressing April. In fact, most of her outfits were surprisingly well coordinated and cutesy compared to how other dads dress their children, and compared to how Peter used to dress himself. Science puns and khakis could have never predicted the fact that he would have matching bow and tutu sets for his daughter. 

But Michelle couldn’t help but project her own style onto April. It was the Control Freak part of her that had her finding baby outfit inspo on Pinterest, and perusing thrift stores for vintage baby dresses, and looking at tiny shoes in the baby aisle at Target when she was supposed to be buying toilet paper and Earl Grey tea. Just the Control Freak part of her. No other part.

She had her eye on the cutest little furry boots, which were useless since April couldn’t walk yet, but Michelle thought they’d look adorable on her nonetheless. She snapped a picture on her phone and sent it to Peter before she could think better of it.

It was a Sunday, which meant Peter was off work and home with April. He replied about a minute later with a photo of him and the baby in question, a huge grin on his face and his hair wild as he laid on his stomach on the floor next to her. April’s hand was outstretched and partially covering the camera lens. 

_ The child approves,  _ Peter said below the picture. 

Needless to say, Michelle bought the boots. 

* * *

The following Tuesday, Michelle was at the Bugle wrapping up a fluff piece about some Manhattan socialite’s recent gala and sending a copy to her editor (not Jameson for this one-- he didn’t waste his precious time on low-hitting stories) when she got a phone call from Peter.

He almost never called during either of their work hours. Something twinged in Michelle’s chest and she wondered if everything was alright, if something had happened to him or April. She clutched her phone, which was still buzzing noisily on her desk, and made her way to the outdoor balcony just outside her floor’s breakroom. It was usually used for lunch breaks or workplace socializing but with the weather still being unreasonably brisk despite the worst of winter being past, the space was completely empty. 

She hit the green button on her screen and brought the phone to her ear. Before she could even think about speaking, she heard the distinct sound of April crying, a sound she’d become very familiar with in recent weeks. “Peter?” Michelle asked between wails, “Is everything okay?” Peter was supposed to be at work and April should have been at daycare, given that it was a weekday morning, so hearing both her and Peter on the line took her by surprise. 

Peter must have heard the undertone of panic in Michelle’s voice, because his initial words came out with obvious false positivity. “ _ Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Kinda. I guess. _ ” The crying quieted for a moment, reduced to a whimper, and then restarted once April caught her breath. “ _ Mostly fine. Nothing drastic _ .”

Michelle waited a beat, pausing to see if he’d say anything else. “So why’d you call?”

“ _ Oh, right! Right. So there’s been a change of plans. April wasn’t feeling well last night, I could tell, she was barely eating and really fussy. And she was up all night screaming. I’m pretty sure the neighbors hate us.” Michelle felt for Peter-- she knew his sleep schedule wasn’t great, but he usually caught a couple hours of shuteye here and there. This time it sounded like he hadn’t slept a wink. The slightly hysteric tone and pace of his voice gave away his exhaustion. “And this morning she was running a temperature, so I skipped work and took her to the doctor. Turns out she’s got a pretty bad ear infection. Great, right? So I’m home with her. But I’m...Man, I’m so tired. I’ve slept maybe five hours in the last two days.” He took a deep breath and continued. “Basically, can you just come straight to the apartment today? I know it seems silly to ask you to come when I’m home for once, but I think I might collapse if I try and stay awake any longer _ .”

Michelle was no stranger to Peter’s tangents; saying everything at once was always how he’d communicated. But one thing he  _ never  _ did was ask for help outright. Even back at Midtown, when he’d obviously been struggling under the weight of school and AcaDec and whatever he had going on at home, he never asked anyone for help. He didn’t even tell anyone what was going on. Michelle had to find out from Ned months later that Peter’s uncle, the man who’d raised him, had been killed and Peter had been spiraling ever since. 

So Peter openly admitting that he was at the end of his rope raised several flags for Michelle. He was really and truly struggling. 

“Yeah, Peter, of course. I’ll head straight there after work.”

_ “Thank you so much, MJ, really. You know where the key is, just let yourself in.” _

Peter ended the call before Michelle could reply. Her unspoken response sat heavy on her tongue.  _ MJ. You called me MJ. You haven’t called me that since high school. No one’s called me that since high school.  _

_ I kind of miss it, honestly. Michelle Jones is too formal. It’s never sat right with me.  _

_ I miss being MJ, Academic Decathlon Captain. MJ, the one that reads during gym class and only talks when she wants to make a joke at some asshole’s expense. Life was simpler then.  _

But the sound of the dead phone line in her ear and the chill of the wind on the balcony reminded Michelle that she  _ wasn’t  _ MJ. Not anymore. That girl would always be a part of her. But she’d grown exponentially since then. Now she was Harvard Graduate and Daily Bugle Journalist Michelle Jones. She had accreditations and certificates and a job to do. So she pocketed her phone, took one last look at the skyline beyond the Bugle’s balcony, and stepped back inside. Peter would be fine until she got off work.   


* * *

As Michelle flipped the deadbolt with the spare key and walked into Peter’s apartment hours later, the little fur boots from Target in hand, she expected the environment to be largely like it had been on the phone. Lots of crying, an exhausted Peter, the apartment an absolute mess. 

Only her second suspicion had been true. Michelle’s first sight upon entry was Peter standing in the living room in a pair of worn pajama bottoms and a grey t-shirt with several dark spots spattered across the chest. Whether it was baby spit-up, or baby tears, or a stain of Peter’s own making, Michelle didn’t know. It was the most casual (a nice way of putting it) she’d ever seen him dressed. 

The apartment was startlingly clean for the home of someone with a sick child. Michelle wondered if he’d stayed up and cleaned it in the middle of the night because had nothing else to do while April cried. It seemed like the sort of ill-timed activity he’d find to occupy himself. 

Peter’s lack of movement as she made her way into the room made her believe that he might not have sensed her come in. But as she moved to set her bag down in the kitchen counter and slip off her shoes, Peter very carefully held a finger to his lips as he swayed in place, one strong hand holding a pink bundle against his shoulder. Michelle gently dropped the boots she’d gotten April next to her bag. Peter nodded in thanks, returning his attention to the task at hand. 

April was asleep against Peter, his flat palm holding her in place and the tips of his fingers supporting her head and neck. Michelle could see her chunky arms where they were pressed up against his chest. She was in a short sleeved onesie despite the winter chill outside, her lack of clothes supplemented by a light pink blanket loosely wrapped around her. Michelle remembered that Peter had mentioned April having a fever earlier in the day. He was probably trying to make sure she stayed cooled off without making her feel unprotected or uncomfortable. 

Michelle tiptoed forward to eye the baby over Peter’s shoulder. “How is she?” Michelle asked in a barely-whisper, so quietly that Peter’s eyes darted down to her lips so he could read them as she spoke. 

“Tolerable. I had her prescription delivered. She’s had acetaminophen and her first dose of antibiotic.” 

Michelle nodded, mentally cataloguing the info for later. “What can I do?” 

Peter’s swaying began to slow. He gradually went from a side-to-side movement to being completely still, just standing in place and looking down at the baby in his arms. Michelle noted the tenderness there, the way Peter did everything involving April so carefully and lovingly even though she was the one who’d kept him awake so long. He started inching his way toward the bassinet next to the sofa. 

“Honestly,” Peter said, “Just watch her while I take a nap.” 

“Really? That’s all you want me to do?” 

“If I don’t get some sleep I’m gonna lose my mind. But she’s still a little warm and I don’t wanna leave her alone like that. If I go to bed right now, I can’t guarantee that I’ll wake up if she cries.” Peter breathed deeply through his nose and mumbled something Michelle wasn’t sure she was supposed to hear; “God, I’m awful.”

He placed April down in the bassinet with deadly precision, then tucked her blanket in around her so she was snug but wouldn’t get too hot. “I basically just need you to make sure the acetaminophen works and her fever stays away. And feed her, I guess, if she gets hungry, or change her, or if she wakes up you could try rocking her I guess—“

“Peter.” 

He obviously wasn’t expecting the hand Michelle put on his shoulder, then, because he looked at her fingers where they now rested on top of his t-shirt and then back up at her face. “Michelle.” 

Michelle realized with a pang he hadn’t called her MJ. She sort of wanted to hear him say it again. “I got it. Seriously. Go to bed. I’ll wake you in a few hours or if anything changes. Okay?” 

Peter rubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Michelle made her way to the bookcase and grabbed herself something random to read -- Peter had so many different genres that Michelle liked to play Book Roulette with herself sometimes -- and situated herself on the couch. 

Peter hadn’t moved. His eyes were still trained on the bassinet. He looked defeated. 

“Go to bed, Parker,” Michelle said. “Neither of us are going anywhere.”

“I know.” He didn’t look like he believed it. “Thanks. For coming over, I mean. Just...Just wake me up if you need something.” He finally turned around and made his way to the bedroom. Michelle heard his door shut and then it was just her, April, and the book Michelle had pulled from the shelf. It was an old copy. The spine was well worn and broken in, and the pages were yellowed at the edges as if someone had spent serious time flipping through it.  _ Time Management: How to Handle It All When You’ve Got a Handle on Nothing.  _

The evening passed slowly. April slept for most of it, Michelle checking on her often but not bothering to wake her up. She probably needed the sleep as much as Peter did.

The light entering Peter’s living room from outside had gone from pale yellow to a deep blue by the time he woke up and stumbled out of his bedroom. Michelle heard a loud thump before she saw him, like he’d fallen out of bed and hit the floor hard. Then he was barreling into the living room on unsteady feet and looking around like he’d lost something important. 

When he didn’t see Michelle on the couch and noticed that the bassinet was empty his entire form tensed, like he was about to completely and totally freak out. His cheeks were flushed pink with panic.

“Peter. Hey. Over here.”

He spun so quickly that Michelle barely saw him move. His dark eyes landed on her in the kitchen, cradling a now-awake April with one arm and popping a fresh bottle into the warmer with the other. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The question had been entirely rhetorical. Peter was obviously not okay. He looked scared out of his mind, an odd look to see on the face of someone who, for all intents and purposes, was usually quite laid back. “You’re here.”

Michelle just blinked and glanced down. April was looking up at her with wide eyes, like,  _ Is this guy serious right now? _

Michelle was inclined to agree. “I never left.”

“C-can I have her, please?” Peter nodded toward April.

“Well she’s your kid, Pete. Come get her.”

He wasted no time stepping around the breakfast bar and taking April into his own arms, cradling her like Michelle had been so he could see her face. “Hey there, stinky. Are you feeling better?” He stuck the tip of his finger under her chin and wiggled it gently. April broke out in a grin and giggled. 

It was obvious April felt no discomfort, but the tendons of Peter’s hands stood out where they were wrapped around her. Sort of like he was trying not to squeeze her. Like he wanted to wrap her up and pull her close but was afraid he’d break her with his compassion. 

He leaned down and blew a raspberry against her cheek, eliciting a whole new series of squeals and giggles from the baby. Peter managed a small smile then looked back toward Michelle. Despite the tension in his demeanor Peter looked moderately rested, the circles beneath his eyes not so dark and the pallor of his skin leaning more toward a normal shade than the sheet white he’d been before. “She doesn’t feel warm anymore.”

“Yeah, she cooled down not too long after you fell asleep. The acetaminophen worked.”

The bottle warmer chimined and Michelle pulled April’s milk out, shaking it a bit before handing it over to Peter so he could feed the baby in his arms. He moved to sit on the couch and April took the bottle with little hesitation. “She didn’t wake up, though? Other than now obviously.”

“Nope. She slept about as long as you did.” Michelle sat heavily on the opposite end of the couch and tucked her legs up beneath her. Peter saw the way her hands were tucked into the sleeves of her sweater and tossed her a stray throw blanket sitting nearby. Michelle took it gratefully and draped it over herself. 

Michelle caught herself being surprised by the easy way Peter and her moved around one another. They were rarely in the same place at the same time, seeing as when Michelle worked she usually picked up April from daycare and left Peter’s apartment when he got home. They’d started out as ships in the night, just exchanging base greetings and passing by one another unless they had something important to discuss regarding April. But in recent weeks they’d gone from discussing the baby to discussing their own lives, even going as far as to call one another on Michelle’s off-days to inquire about the other’s well-being. She knew more about Peter’s daily life now than she ever did in high school. It was strange and altogether unexpected, the way she felt like she knew him despite their minimal in-person interaction.

She was okay with the tentative friendship they’d formed, even if she felt like it wasn’t on the most steady ground. Neither of them acted like they were best buds by any means, and neither of them had any obligation to spill their guts to the other, but Peter always seemed like he was holding something back. Like the Peter she’d gotten to know was just on the surface of whatever else he had going on. 

It brought her back to the little glass and metal vial sitting on her desk at home, the one she’d swiped from Peter’s coat pocket that first day she came over. She still felt bad about that and had considered bringing it back, but Peter never mentioned it again and apparently hadn’t noticed anything was missing. So her inquisitive nature won over her morals and she kept the vial to do her own research. 

No Oscorp product released in the last ten years looked anything like the vial or what was in it. It didn’t match any of the futuristic medicinal containers they’d been developing, and it had nothing to do with any of their clinical trials. She even referred back to her personal collection of Oscorp info from when she was writing her exposé and found nothing of use. At this point Michelle would consider herself a relative expert of all things Oscorp despite having never worked there herself. So why couldn’t she figure out where the hell Peter got the vials?

But in the end it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d been doing with them didn’t involve her. She felt bad for prying in the first place. Michelle didn’t know how he even found time to be up to something, but as long as his activities didn’t hurt him, April, or Michelle herself, it wasn’t her business. 

Once Michelle was situated with the blanket and had given Peter a minute to calm down, she decided to satisfy her curiosity surrounding his behavior. “I don’t think her wake-up was nearly as abrupt as yours. That was quite the crash.”

“You heard that?”

“The downstairs neighbors probably heard that.”

“I woke up in a hurry. Got tangled in the blankets and busted my ass on the floor.” There it was, the shadow behind his eyes that made Michelle think there was something he wasn’t telling her. 

To Michelle’s great surprise, Peter sat up a little and resituated April and the bottle in his arms like he was gearing up for something. “I have nightmares. Like, kinda often. They’re worse when I’m really tired. It’s almost like I don’t have the energy for my subconscious to block them out.” 

Michelle had her own fair share of nightmares, but they’d never been bad enough to send her tumbling out of bed. “What’re they about?” 

Peter shrugged. “Anything. Everything. April, usually, or her mom.” 

“Gwen,” Michelle said before she could think better of it. 

Peter tilted his head. “How’d you know?” 

“Saw the picture in your bedroom when I was looking for the WiFi router.” She paused. “Sorry,” she added as an afterthought. 

“It’s fine. I didn’t put it there to hide it.” Peter looked far away. His mind was somewhere other than the sofa of his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. “Gwen’s death was way worse than natural causes. The memory is unpleasant, to say the least.” 

Michelle decided to leave that topic alone unless Peter steered the conversation there. He didn’t look like he planned on speaking further. Michelle wanted to pick up the slack without ignoring the issue at hand. “What was this dream about?” 

April was almost done with her bottle. Peter readjusted his grip so she could get the last of the formula. “I couldn’t find April. Like, anywhere. I ran around the apartment freaking out and she was just gone. I went around asking my neighbors and everybody acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. It was like she never existed. But I was  _ so sure  _ that I’d put her to bed in the crib. It ends with me coming back to the apartment and realizing the window to my bedroom is open.” 

“That’s awful. I can’t even imagine.” 

He huffed a laugh. April was done with her bottle, so Peter leaned her upward against one hand and patted her back with the other.  _ Her doctor said that this is about the age when you can stop burping them,  _ Peter had told Michelle once,  _ but of course, I got stuck with the gassiest baby on the planet. Sometimes she needs a little help.  _ Michelle hadn’t been able to stop laughing. “That’s one of my usual ones,” Peter said solemnly, breaking Michelle out of her thoughts. “They’ve been worse.” 

Michelle didn’t know how Gwen Stacy died. That was none of her business. But when Peter started spazzing out in high school, it became common knowledge that Peter’s parents were dead, he’d grown up with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, and that Ben had died a relatively violent death. Michelle didn’t know if May was still in the picture; Peter had yet to really mention her unless it was in passing. 

But Peter’s unsteady past piled on top of losing the girl he loved, a girl who was also the mother of his child, gave him plenty of nightmare fuel. Michelle was surprised and moderately impressed that he slept at all. 

“Regardless. I’m sorry it happens.” 

He finally looked up from April and made direct eye contact with Michelle. It was a war of wills, both of them obviously feeling the tension in the air but neither of them wanting to look away first. “Yeah. Uh, thanks.” 

The spell broke when, courtesy of Peter’s prime baby burping skills, April let out an unassuming hiccup. And then spit up all over Peter’s pajama pants. 

Michelle immediately broke out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “I guess...I guess she still doesn’t f-feel good,” Michelle said between breaths. 

Peter was looking from his daughter to his ruined pants and back, over and over, mouth slightly agape. He held April, who looked as calm and innocent as a baby could look, out by the armpits and toward Michelle. “Would you mind? I’m gonna go…”

Michelle, still chuckling, took the baby into her arms. “Go change. I got her.” 

He nodded in thanks and stood up slowly, trying to keep the mess as small as possible while he made his way to his bedroom. “The joys of fatherhood,” he called from the hallway. 

He reappeared a few minutes later with a fresh set of sweatpants. Before returning to the couch he turned away from the living room and toward the breakfast bar, grabbing a few wet wipes from the stray package resting there. 

Michelle had noticed a change in Peter’s stature when they met up in Midtown Roast. He was significantly more broad than he had been back at Midtown, had grown a few inches, and from what Michelle could tell through his coat, had packed on some muscle. 

But seeing him then, seeing the way his sweatpants stretched over toned thighs and cinched around his calves, revealed to Michelle that Peter was more than just muscular. He was  _ ripped.  _

Suddenly Peter was taking April from Michelle’s arms and wiping her face, making sure none of the spit-up had landed on her onesie or blanket. Michelle wasn’t watching his hands work, though, but his arms. They way they flexed and tensed as he held April. The hems of his shirt sleeves strained around his biceps. 

_ That’s it. Peter Parker’s on steroids. He has to be.  _

“Michelle?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I help you with something?”

“Huh?”

Peter was smirking but his brow was creased, almost like he couldn’t decide whether to be confused or amused. It both infuriated and intrigued Michelle at the same time. “You’re staring.”

He was right. She  _ was  _ staring. But it was  _ purely _ for scientific reasons. She was just observing. Yeah. “Sorry, I was zoned out. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

Peter’s smirk morphed into something like a frown, and Michelle immediately felt guilty. She hadn’t meant to make it sound like she was blaming him for anything. “I’m sorry, I’ve kept you here a long time. I didn’t realize how late it was. You’re obviously free to go home whenever.”

Some part of her wanted to stay and make sure Peter and April were really alright. If Michelle were him, she wouldn’t want to be alone after a nightmare like that. Peter and her had grown beyond a professional relationship in the last few weeks and had delved into something close to solid friends. But Michelle didn’t feel like that gave her enough leeway to invite herself over to stay on his couch, even if it was in the name of protecting his mental well-being. And besides, Peter looked extremely guilty for having kept her out so long, like he was inconveniencing her even though she was being paid to be there. 

Logic won out and Michelle’s arms spread above her in a stretch born of genuine exhaustion. She really was running on fumes; work had been a doozy, with her most recent piece being due in only two days, and coming straight to Peter’s apartment to a sick baby and the baby’s moderately spastic father hadn’t made things easier. “I might get going soon, then. We both have to be up early.” 

“Yeah, sure, no doubt. Totally.” 

Peter held April in one arm as he and Michelle worked to collect her things. They always ended up all over the apartment, to Michelle’s great dismay. This time her phone was in the couch cushions and her laptop charger was in the bread box. Michelle always prided herself on her organizational skills, but something about Peter’s apartment frazzled her to no end. Like the second she stepped through his front door, her day to day life and self flew right out the window. 

Belongings finally gathered, Michelle made her way to Peter’s front door. “I’m headed out,” she called back to Peter, who was in his bedroom changing April and getting her ready for bed. 

Peter bent away from the changing table to poke his head around the doorway. “You want me to walk you to the subway station?”

Michelle was already prepared to turn down his offer, a casual  _ that’s okay, thanks though _ on the tip of her tongue. He offered to walk her to the station pretty much every time she came over. She had yet to say yes, her excuse being that she was taking a cab or that the subway station really wasn’t that far away from Peter’s place. In reality, she just felt bad inconveniencing him. Especially on a day like today when he’d been up with a sick baby and probably just wanted to call it a night. 

Something within Michelle stopped her from saying no this time. Whether it was her own exhaustion, or the open, innocent look on Peter’s face, or a random spur of the moment decision, Michelle didn’t know. But yes, she  _ did  _ want Peter to walk her to the station this time. 

“That would be great, actually. Thanks.”

If Peter was surprised by her change of sudden heart, he didn’t show it. Just smiled and nodded and ducked back into his bedroom. “Alright, give me a couple minutes to get April situated and we’ll head out.”

* * *

Ten minutes later the three of them were bundled up and ready to face a chilly New York evening. April was in her carrier with a little coat and beanie on and seemed perfectly content to doze beneath Peter’s sweatshirt. (Sometimes he’d put a hoodie on over her carrier and stretch the neck so just her head poked out. Michelle thought it was adorable.)

The night was brisk but pleasant, crisp winter air making up for a lack of visible stars. It was several hours past dinner but the streets of Hell’s Kitchen were still bustling with cars and pedestrians alike. At Michelle’s side, Peter managed to keep up with her quick pace despite the baby asleep on his chest. He looked better than he had before Michelle arrived at the apartment. He was a little less pale, a little less slumped over. But Michelle had a feeling that no matter how much he slept, those shadows beneath his eyes would never totally fade. He had too much on his plate. She was touched that he was spending the last bit of his evening to make sure she got home safely. 

“Are you gonna be able to sleep tonight,” Michelle asked Peter, “since you slept for so long this afternoon?”

Peter scoffed. “Are you kidding? I haven’t had problems falling asleep in six months.” He absentmindedly patted the April-shaped lump beneath his coat. “I’ll knock out the second my head hits the pillow.”

They were descending the stairs that led down to the subway platform. A wrinkled old man named Guitar Gary, according to the cardboard sign propped against his guitar case, was strumming an out of tune acoustic. The melody sounded something like The Beatles’  _ Penny Lane,  _ but the notes were so off that Michelle couldn’t be sure. 

Over the general din of the street above and the platform below, Michelle could hear April begin to whine. Peter placed a comforting hand over her back and rubbed in little circles in an attempt to calm her before she could really start fussing. “Guitar Gary needs a tune-up. If a loud noise is making  _ April  _ cry, Lover of All Loud Noises, you know you’re doing something wrong.” 

Michelle laughed outwardly, her eyes still trained on the struggling guitarist below. In her peripheral vision she could see Peter turn toward her. He might have been smiling. She couldn’t tell. She was too busy catching the toe of her boot on a stair and falling face first toward the ground. 

She yelped and squeezed her eyes shut as concrete steps rushed toward her in a sad attempt at bracing for impact. 

But the impact never came. There was a distinct tugging sensation on her arm. The sleeve of her coat slipped off her shoulder and Michelle could feel cold air hit the skin beneath the neckline of her shirt. 

She dared to open her eyes and realized that Peter was the reason her face hadn’t smacked the asphalt. He had her wrist in an iron grip in one hand, eyes wide and alert. His other hand was wrapped protectively around the baby strapped to his chest. He was standing at such an angle that Michelle was surprised he hadn’t fallen down the stairs as well. But he didn’t look shaky in the slightest, steady on his feet as he leaned far enough forward on his own stair to keep Michelle off the ground. 

“Are you okay?” He asked her, a little bit breathlessly. 

Michelle only nodded. She tried to calm her racing heart but failed horribly when Peter gave her a tug, pulling her away from the ground and into his side in one fell swoop. It was the sort of move she never would have expected Peter Parker from high school to attempt, much less execute successfully. 

“F-Fine. Thanks.”

“Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah.” 

Michelle cleared her throat and Peter realized his arm had been around her a few moments too long. He pulled it back toward himself quickly. 

They both started making their way down the stairs again, this time reaching the bottom without any mishaps. “Those were some quick reflexes,” Michelle noted pointlessly as they waited for the train. Peter hadn’t been quick. He’d been  _ impossible.  _ A catch like that… Considering where Peter had been standing when she tripped, he shouldn’t have been able to grab her, much less pull her back up without losing his own balance. 

Peter chuckled a little, though it didn’t sound genuine. “Been working on that. You know how clumsy I used to be.”

She did. Michelle had distinct memories of Peter Parker falling down stairs and tripping on air all over Midtown High. She was so busy thinking about it that she didn’t notice when the train approached the platform. Michelle hurriedly stepped to the side as passengers rushed out through the open doors. 

“Thursday, then?” Peter called out as Michelle stepped onto the train. Most of the seats were taken already; she grabbed one of the overhead rails and planted her feet. 

“Thursday!” she said back. 

Peter smiled, and Michelle couldn’t help but smile back. Peter was infectious that way.

The smile stuck as the doors closed in front of her. Peter, still on the platform, turned to the side and stretched the neck of his sweatshirt, aiming himself so April could watch the train depart. He pulled one of her little hands through the gap between his neck and the hoodie and used it to wave as Michelle disappeared from sight. 


	4. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Thursday started out unexpectedly well. Jameson personally reviewed Michelle’s most recent piece, a facts-hidden-in-fluff piece about child adoption in NYC, and he didn’t immediately trash the entire thing. That was basically a gold stamp of approval as far as J. Jonah Jameson's responses went. 

Michelle rode that high for a good majority of the workday, and took the good mood into the evening with her. Knowing that it was a babysitting day also helped; watching April Parker had become borderline therapeutic. Michelle felt close to the baby in a way she never had with her other client’s children. She didn’t know if that was a result of April’s age, or her behavior, or the fact that Michelle usually saw her three to four times a week, more than she ever saw any of her other kids. Whatever the reason, leaving work to get April from daycare was something akin to going home to a child of her own. 

She wasn’t delusional, though. Michelle knew April wasn’t hers, would never be hers. She was  _ paid  _ to be there for her. She never fooled herself into thinking she was some sort of pillar in the baby’s life. Peter had taken care of April on his own before Michelle was around. He was a great dad and was perfectly capable of raising a child. 

But Michelle couldn’t pretend to dislike the way April grinned when the daycare employee handed her over, or the way she opened and closed her little fists like she couldn’t wait to be in Michelle’s arms. 

“She’s in a really good mood today,” the employee said, still holding the diaper bag as Michelle strapped April into her carrier. She had learned over time that the baby preferred the chest carrier over her car seat and was usually less fussy when she was comfortable. Who was Michelle to take that from her? “Miss April here has been talking all day. Isn’t that right?” 

April made some loud, senseless noises in response. Her brown eyes were bright with curiosity. 

Michelle chuckled. “I’d expect nothing less. She’s always got something to say.” 

The employee handed Michelle the diaper bag, which she swung over her shoulder (she’d gotten better at handling the baby and diaper bag combo load over the last few weeks) and made her way out of the building. The air was sharp and cut through Michelle’s coat with ease, but for the first time in weeks, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The sun reflected off the windows of nearby buildings and warmed Michelle’s cheeks where the wind had whipped them raw. 

It was hard to be in a bad mood on a day like this. Sun shining, baby babbling. It almost made Michelle wish she lived somewhere a little less urban; somewhere with wide open spaces and trees for miles. A place where she could enjoy nature and sunshine and weather in all of its forms and not have to worry about wearing snow boots to work or getting her laptop ruined because she got caught in the rain. 

But any time Michelle considered leaving NYC, she never passed the mental planning stage. New York was her home. She couldn’t imagine being somewhere else. 

Especially not when superheroes hop over you on your daily commute like it’s the most normal thing in the world. What other city gives you superpowered guys in skintight spandex? 

Half the people on the street didn’t even look up as Spider-Man swung by, either too preoccupied in their own thoughts to notice or so used to seeing him that his presence was uninteresting. Michelle joined the onlookers, hand shading her eyes from the afternoon sun as she watched him soar above her and April. She felt the gust of air as he flew by overhead. Usually Spider-Man swung leisurely, waving at pedestrians and sometimes even getting close enough to exchange verbal greetings as he made his way across the city. 

Today it looked like he had somewhere to be. He glided above the street with definite purpose, arms extending rhythmically as he shot web after web toward buildings on either side of the avenue. Spider-Man didn’t get close enough to the ground to initiate civilian interaction and was soon completely out of sight, taking the next street corner at a sharp angle and promptly soaring out of sight. 

Michelle was suddenly reminded of the first day she picked up April from daycare, the way Spider-Man had landed on their cab and took the time to start a dispute with their cab driver. He’d even stopped to wave at Michelle and April, who’d been totally enthralled by him, through the taxi window. That carefree Spider-Man was not the one out and about today. Something big must have been happening. 

She started walking with a little more purpose. If something dangerous enough for Spider-Man to get involved was going down, she wanted no part of it, especially not with April strapped to her chest. 

At some point on the walk home, Michelle realized Peter had never texted her to make sure the daycare pick-up went alright. No matter how busy he got he usually texted her at 4:45 on the dot to make sure everything was in order, but he’d been radio silent for a majority of the afternoon. The lack of communication didn’t sit right with her, but she decided to give Peter the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he really was just working so hard that he’d lost track of time. Maybe his phone was dead. Maybe he finally realized Michelle was good at her job and didn’t need to be checked on all the time. 

Not that Michelle minded Peter checking up on her. She liked how invested he was in his daughter’s wellbeing. But sometimes she felt as if he didn’t trust her, even though she’d given him every reason to do just that. She was punctual, detailed, dedicated. What could he possibly be worried about? 

But then Michelle approached the apartment and pulled her key out of her bag, the key Peter had given her personally (he’d even stopped leaving a spare outside the door) and she realized she was being irrational. Of course he trusted her. He trusted her to take care of his infant daughter four days a week and to have unrestricted access to his home. Those facts were by no means insignificant. 

The apartment was cold when she walked in. It was usually chilly; Peter’s heater worked about as well as a garage sale toaster oven. But today there was a draft sweeping its way through the living room and whipping around the string that held the window blinds in place. 

It didn’t take Michelle long to identify the culprit-- the window in the living room was partially open. The fire escape outside stood empty and unassuming. 

Why would the window be open? Peter knew how cold his place got, especially in the evenings. He’s the one that told her she had free use of any and every blanket in the house. 

Michelle didn’t bother putting down any of her bags before she immediately turned tail and stepped back into the hallway outside the apartment, quickly shutting the door behind her. She managed to pull her phone out of her back pocket and bring it to her ear without whacking April in the head with it. She tapped Peter’s contact in her  _ Recent Calls _ list and anxiously listened to the line hum. 

After the first couple rings, the line went to voicemail. Odd, because Peter usually always answers his phone if it’s Michelle calling. He was too protective of April to ignore calls from her babysitter. Michelle immediately hit the call button again and tapped her foot against the hallway floor. 

Finally, several rings later, Peter picked up the phone. Michelle heard an excessive amount of shuffling on the other end of the line. “Hello? Peter?” 

“Yeah! What’s up?” Peter sounded out of breath, each word coming out in a sort of huff. 

“Hey. Sorry to bother you. Did you know the window in your living room is open? I know it’s probably not a big deal, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get robbed or something-“

A burst of sound came through the phone so harshly that Michelle pulled the device away from her ear, turning it every which way to make sure her speaker hadn’t blown or the device wasn’t about to self-destruct. Michelle thought she heard someone talking and brought it back to her face. “Uh, you there?” 

“Sorry, yes! Just got a lot going on. What were you asking about again?” 

“The window. In the living room. It’s open.” 

“ _ Shit.  _ That’s my bad. I was o-out on the fire escape earlier. Yeah. That’s where I was.” The call audio went fuzzy. It sounded as if Peter were driving a convertible with the top down, all wind and muffled sounds. 

“Are you outside or something? I can barely hear you.” 

“Work stuff! Gotta go, bye.” The line went silent and Michelle’s phone beeped, signaling the end of the call. 

Michelle’s worry dampened with the knowledge that there was (probably) no one lurking around inside the apartment. But confusion took its place just as fast. 

She looked down at the baby attached to her chest, who’d been silent for the entire ordeal. “April, why was your dad out on the fire escape?” 

April just smacked her lips and drooled a little bit, like,  _ How am I supposed to know?  _

“An odd one, your father is.” 

Upon re-entry Michelle promptly dropped her bags and shut the living room window, then kicked up the already struggling thermostat to a humane temperature. The entire apartment was freezing and likely wouldn’t noticeably warm up for a couple hours. 

But Peter’s room, Michelle realized as she was carrying April to the changing pad on top of her dresser, had its door shut all day. The space was still reasonably warm. So Michelle made-do like she always does and carried a few toys and books into Peter’s bedroom, and her and the baby set up shop on the floor for the foreseeable future. 

April didn’t seem to mind the change in scenery. She was perfectly content to wiggle around on her play mat and babble and gnaw on her little rubber Spider-Man figurine. It was starting to look pretty rough, scratched up in some areas and dented in others where Michelle couldn’t get it to push back out. But it was still her favorite, and she screamed every time Michelle tried to hand her something else. So she played with the damaged Spider-Man. 

Michelle’s phone buzzed suddenly somewhere in the bottom of her bag. She figured it would be a phone call, maybe Peter calling back to explain why he’d acted so strangely earlier, but upon finding the device Michelle realized it was a Civilian Safety alert from her news app. She was no stranger to alerts like this; something abnormal or outright ridiculous was always happening in New York. Usually the issue was somewhere else in the city and she could go on with business as usual. So what if there was a man in a Rhino suit rampaging in the Financial District? Michelle had deadlines to meet. Not her building being crushed, not her problem. Most of her coworkers and friends had adopted the same outlook as far as supervillains went. Life was too short for them to panic every time some fool in a supersuit took to the streets. 

But this warning carried more weight. The notification read  _ Spider-Man v. Scorpion conflict in Midtown. Civilians should stay inside and off the streets until further notice.  _

Octavius Industries was down in Greenwich, so Peter was safe for the time being. But Midtown was only a short jump from Peter’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. And Scorpion was one of Spider-Man’s known villains—- he was no joke. Michelle had April to think about. She was worried for her own well-being, of course, but it was hard to be concerned about herself when there was a baby in her care, too young to process the potential danger they were in. 

Michelle hurriedly clicked the news app and brought up the live broadcast of the fight. 

The volume of the news anchor’s voice startled April into a fit of whining and Michelle immediately turned it down. The last thing she needed was April’s panic on top of her own. As much as she disliked J. Jonah Jameson, Michelle sort of wished he was the one narrating. At least April would stay calm. 

The camera footage of the fight was shaky as usual, the angle and height implying that it was being taken from a helicopter. News outlets had tried getting ground coverage before, but the cameramen almost always ended up getting webbed out of the way by Spider-Man or their equipment got ruined by the villain. It had become common knowledge that if you wanted Spidey fight footage, you got it from the air. 

The news anchor wasted no time with formal speech or metaphors, didn’t bother trying to make the fight between Spider-Man and one of his greatest foes seem cinematic or graceful, and did what Michelle wished every journalist would do; told it like they saw it. “We’ve got teams in the sky over Midtown as Spider-Man saves the city once again. MacDonald Gargan, also known as  _ the Scorpion,  _ escaped from Rikers approximately twenty five minutes ago. Gargan evaded Police capture on Riker’s bridge and tore his way through northwestern Queens, then hopped over into middle Manhattan. If you’re in this area, please exercise great caution. Stay indoors. NYPD officers are working to keep the fight contained. Queensboro bridge is out of service for the time being, and roadways are blocked with debris—“ 

Though the information being presented was useful, Michelle couldn’t stay focused on the audio for long. Her eyes were drawn to the red and blue figure flipping around her phone screen. Spider-Man was always the center of attention. No matter how big or strong or unbelievable the opposing party was, almost everyone kept their eyes on New York’s most famous hometown hero.

The camera struggled to keep up with Spidey as he hopped from building to building on foot, apparently trying to conserve his webs for up-close attacks. He operated with a sort of wild grace uncharacteristic of a grown man. His movements, while sporadic and unplanned, were usually successful. He could stand on a fire escape rail with only the tips of his toes, then jump and somersault over a flying projectile, and then land with unbelievable precision on the top of a lamp post yards away. There seemed to be no limit to his acrobatic abilities. 

Spider-Man was employing those abilities now. Even from this camera distance and through the screen of her phone Michelle could tell Spidey was especially focused this time around. Scorpion was no joke. If the rumors were true, he’d almost killed Spider-Man the first time they went head to head. Of course, that had been almost a decade ago. Michelle was in high school, had maybe been a sophomore or Junior. Spider-Man had barely been active for a year at that point. She could only hope that Spider-Man had enough experience after roughly ten years of swinging around the city to keep himself alive and minimize damages. 

He landed a shot with his webs and Scorpion was stuck to the ground. Spidey wasted no time and immediately started jumping over and around him, every movement followed by another punch or kick to a sensitive spot in Scorpion’s armor. Gargan was writhing under the webs, head bucking up and down. The audio was too muffled to know for sure but Michelle assumed he was saying something rather unpleasant things. 

Spider-Man stopped moving for a moment. He was hunched over about a dozen feet away from Gargan’s still-squirming form, hands on his knees like he couldn’t catch his breath. Then, with a lazy sweep of his arm, he motioned to the area at large, like,  _ Really, man? Is all this necessary?  _ Michelle wished she could hear Spider-Man’s voice over the sound of the helicopter and the news anchor. Spider-Man’s quips, while usually dumb dad jokes, were entertaining most of the time. 

The news anchor’s voice went from that of an objective observer to a concerned bystander, and Michelle was forced to tune back in. “Spider-Man looks to be slowing down. No one’s surprised— he’s been fighting Scorpion since he caught up with him in Queens almost a half hour ago.” 

_ A half hour ago?  _ Most of Spidey’s big fights, unless they were car chases, lasted five minutes  _ tops.  _ Any longer and the collateral damage started piling up. If he’d been following Gargan since Queens and hadn’t taken him down, Spidey had either been injured early in the fight and wasn’t operating at one hundred percent or Gargan’s tech had gotten more nasty. 

Michelle had the unsettling feeling that it was a little of both. Because as soon as Spidey straightened up like he was ready to go another round, limping slightly on his left leg and holding his ribs gingerly, Gargan snapped the webs restraining him and wasted no time soaring right for Spider-Man. 

The two of them went rolling out of frame for a moment and then tumbled back in, Spider-Man hopping upward and using the momentum of a web swing to kick Gargan with both feet. Scorpion went flying and smacked into the side of an apartment building. Brick crumbled around him in a crackling arc. Michelle outwardly cringed. Whatever leg injury Spidey had probably wasn’t feeling too great after that. 

April started fussing and Michelle’s attention was pulled from her phone. The baby had somehow managed to roll her toy several feet off her playmat and under Peter’s bed and was crying in its direction. She rocked back and forth on her arms and legs, so close to crawling but not close enough to retrieve her toy on her own. The little bow headband she was wearing (a white one, with a white long sleeve onesie covered in blue snowflakes; Michelle had been very impressed with Peter’s baby dressing skills that day) was slipping into her eyes and frustrating her more. When she tried to use an uncoordinated hand to nudge it away from her face she sacrificed her balance and fell flat on the floor. 

“You babies. Always creating your own problems.” Michelle went flat on her stomach and scooted her head and shoulders beneath the bed. The Spider-Man figurine had made its way between a box labeled  _ WB Cmpnt  _ and a black armored container that was something akin to a safe, but there was no keyhole. Just a thumb print scanner near the front of the lid. 

“April? Any idea what your dad’s hiding in his fancy safe here?” 

April just kept crying. 

“The toy. Right.” 

The way the toy was positioned, Michelle needed to tug the  _ WB Cmpnt  _ box forward and out to have access. Without much thought she grabbed at one of the outer flaps and pulled the box across the carpet toward her. It got caught on the lip of the bed frame and she tugged even harder.

First came the distinct sound of cardboard ripping, and then a pile of chemistry equipment was haphazardly tumbling to the floor. Michelle couldn’t react quickly enough to grab the pipettes or graduated cylinders rolling past her. An Erlenmeyer flask landed next to her knee, and she had to back out very carefully from under the bed so she wouldn’t crush it. 

The  _ WB Cmpnt  _ box was ruined. The labeled side had been torn from both of its edges top to bottom and was now lying flat, completely separated from the rest of the box. The other sides didn’t look much better. The upper edges of the cardboard where they connected to the top flaps were shredded and torn from Michelle trying to unlodge the box from the bed frame. Not to mention that there was enough chemistry equipment to supply a small high school now splayed across the floor. April was reaching for a miniature vial labeled with a chemical formula Michelle didn’t recognize and she had to swat it away. 

There were a lot of those, actually. Michelle found several vials of different sizes, each with an unfamiliar chemical formula scrawled on a sticker label on the outside. Some were perfectly clear like water and others were oddly opaque. 

Michelle was also surprised to find a handful of the Oscorp viles she’d found in Peter’s coat pocket all those weeks ago. These ones were empty, the glass inside the metal casing see-through opposed to being filled with the tacky white fluid that had been in the one she kept. But the presence of the empty vials only piqued her interest more. It meant that Peter was probably responsible for creating whatever filled the vile she now kept in her desk at home. 

Among the equipment was a small, hand-operated machine. A large handle sat beneath six open slots and above six others, the slots on top about the right size for the Oscorp viles to slide in and attach to a row of nozzles. The bottom openings looked as if they held some other sort of container, these ones bigger. The nozzles on this end aimed upward as if they ran under the handle and into the nozzles on top. Whatever the contraption was, it looked like Peter used it to fill the Oscorp vials.

Peter had a makeshift home lab to synthesize and store whatever it was he was making. There was more to the Oscorp vials than Michelle had originally thought. 

Trying to refocus and push her own conspiracies aside for the moment, Michelle grabbed April’s toy and handed it back to her before piling the chemistry supplies back in the ruined box with as much grace as possible. That was going to be super awkward to explain to Peter when he got home. Stumbling upon it had been a genuine accident but Michelle felt like she’d done something wrong. Looked through a window she wasn’t supposed to. 

With April satisfied for the time being and Peter’s vials and bottles and what-have-you back where they came from, Michelle was able to refocus on her phone and the live broadcast of the Spidey fight. 

Which, apparently, was over. She’d missed the entire thing while she was cleaning up her mess. 

The camera was still trained on the fight area, evidence of the recent conflict seen in the cracked brick of a nearby building, random scuff marks in the asphalt of the street, and the tell-tale gossamer glimmer of Spider-Man’s webs scattered everywhere and shifting slightly in the evening breeze. The way the strands shone under the streetlights made Michelle realize that if the webs didn’t dissolve after a couple hours, Spider-Man would have a lot of angry citizens and street cleaners on his hands. He always made a  _ serious  _ mess. Michelle was reminded of the way he’d landed on top of her cab all those weeks ago with minimal regard for property damage. Spider-Man, savior of NYC and ruiner of car hoods everywhere. 

Scorpion was in the camera shot, too, lying in the middle of the road, but he was buried under a pile of webs and staying still enough that Michelle had to assume he was knocked out. Bits of red and blue flickered around the edges of the camera frame. The police were arriving. “Another successful Spider-Man takedown,” the unseen news anchor said, “but New York’s hometown hero disappeared shortly after the fight looking the worse for wear. We all watched it go down, folks. That stinger strike was no joke. Whatever concoction Gargan is packing in that suit, synthetic or not, it’s bound to be unpleasant. Let’s all take a collective deep breath for Spidey and hope he’s alright. I have a feeling he’s going to need the well wishes.” 

“You hear that, April? Your Spidey might be in trouble.” 

April didn’t seem to care that the model for her favorite toy was possibly swinging around the streets of New York half dead. She was too busy doing the funny little butt wiggle she did when she needed a diaper change. Michelle scooped her up by the armpits and lifted her rear ended toward her own face. 

“ _ Whoa.  _ Yep. That’s ripe. Geeze. You’re supposed to save the bad ones for your dad. I don’t get paid enough to change these.”

April was always squirmy when she was being changed. Getting her still long enough to grab a fresh diaper was a process, getting the new diaper  _ on  _ even more so. By the time Michelle lifted her off her changing pad the baby was flailing and babbling so much Michelle thought she might have upset her. But the crooked smile on her chubby face was evidence of the opposite. 

Michelle turned back toward the playmat and prepared to return April to her previous position. “You little sadist, you always think it’s funny when I’m struggling—“

The sudden series of crashes and bangs that came from beyond the bedroom door shocked Michelle so badly that she flinched and startled April, who wasted no time and started bawling. Her spontaneous tears always added a whole new level of tension to already tense situations that Michelle didn’t think she’d ever get used to. 

The sound had been loud, too loud for it to have been the upstairs neighbors. Michelle had shut the window so it wasn’t the pane hitting the windowsill. None of Peter’s furniture was big enough or unstable enough to tip over on its own. The thump Michelle had heard was distinctly human-like. 

April’s crib was on the other side of the room, now, opposed to next to the bed like it had been when Michelle first started babysitting for Peter. Michelle promptly set her down within it and felt immense guilt when she started crying harder, her arms stuck in the air in a physical plea for Michelle to hold her again. 

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry. Here. Have Spider-Man. And blankey. Here.” April paid no mind to the toy and fuzzy blanket Michelle put in the crib with her. She was too focused on the fact that her babysitter was stumbling around the bedroom looking for something she could use as a weapon. She heard another  _ thump _ come from the living room and her panic increased tenfold. 

Peter had a distinct  _ lack  _ of useful items around his space. Michelle ended up going with an oversized Erlenmeyer Flask from the  _ WB Cmpnt  _ box. It looked ridiculous and would be useless after one swing, but she figured a huge glass container was a better weapon than her bare hands. 

Just before she grabbed the door handle to make her way into the hallway, Michelle had the piece of mind to text Peter. He’d probably like to know why he’ll be coming home to shattered glass all over the living room floor. 

Michelle typed out a text as quickly as her thumbs would allow.  _ Took a flask from your chemistry set to whack a burglar. Sorry.  _ She slid her lock screen to the Emergency Call tab, then prepped the line to dial 911. Michelle liked to think she was tough, unbreakable, unshakeable. She’d more or less been on her own since she entered high school. She could take care of herself. But she wasn’t unrealistic, either. She was ill-prepared to defend herself against anyone who posed a real physical threat. It took every bit of courage within her, egged on by the knowledge that she was responsible for the life of a six month old child, to step out into the hallway and close the bedroom door behind her. She hated to leave April alone but there was  _ no  _ way Michelle would purposely carry her into a dangerous situation. 

The hallway was short, a testament to the small size of Peter’s apartment, so it didn’t take long for Michelle to reach the end. She considered staying hidden behind the wall that cornered off where the living room and kitchen morphed into the hall, but quickly decided that she’d rather have the element of surprise than time to prepare an attack method. So, with more reckless abandon than she’d exercised in the last decade of her life, Michelle hefted the glass flask above her head, charged into the living room, and swung at the first person shaped figure she saw. 

She felt herself stop breathing when a hand wrapped around her wrist before the flask could make contact. 

Michelle  _ started  _ breathing again, albeit a bit too quickly, when she realized the hand was wrapped in red and blue spandex. Spandex that ran up the intruder’s arm, down his torso and legs, and encased his head entirely, the only break in fabric being two expressive lenses where his eyes would be. 

“Sp… I don’t... _ Spider-Man?” _

Michelle had always been a firm believer in the power of human observation. The way people could draw important conclusions from taking info from their environment. A large chunk of her journalism skills came from her own ability to use common sense and piece together stories from the facts provided. 

But for some reason, even though the facts couldn’t haven’t been any more clear, Michelle felt as if she were seeing the world through backwards binoculars. Everything was blurry and far away and horribly disorienting. 

The details she  _ could  _ gather were not reassuring. The window she’d closed earlier was open again. She could feel the breeze from outside as it re-froze the room Peter’s pathetic heater had worked so hard to warm. A couple faint red handprints were dotted on the windowsill along with dirty boot scuffs, as if someone had clumsily crawled through. The sky outside was dark, horns and cars and shouts from the nearby street still audible despite the hour. 

Spider-Man looked like he was about to keel over. Michelle could feel the way his hand was shaking even as it was tightly wound around her own. His shoulders were slumped, chin tilted down like he didn’t have the energy to hold his head up anymore. His suit was ripped in various places; around a bicep, across a leg. There was a sizable gash under the tear on his leg, likely the reason he’d been limping on the news. The bicep was nothing more than a scratch. 

Michelle’s eyes travelled up and over. Something like a puncture wound marred the chest space just beneath his left shoulder. Pale skin and a mixture of dried and fresh blood stood out red and tacky around the edges of torn fabric. But there was something else to the injury, something more severe. It was tinged a sickly green-black. Like there was something else in there apart from dirt and blood. 

“Wh-“ Spider-Man tried to talk but almost immediately lapsed into a fit of hoarse coughing. Michelle just stood there, completely frozen, while he caught his breath. The Erlenmeyer Flask in her hand fell to the floor and thankfully didn’t shatter as it hit the living room carpet. “ _ Where is she?”  _

It took Michelle too long to craft response. She was usually so quick on her toes. Why couldn’t she formulate a simple sentence? 

_ Oh, right _ . Because Spider-Man had just broken into Peter Parker’s apartment. 

“Where’s who? What are you doing here, Spider-Man? What’s going on?” 

He finally let go of Michelle’s arm and looked as if he were about to sprint around her, mask lenses aimed toward the hallway. Spider-Man tensed, took one step forward, and promptly collapsed when he put pressure on his bad leg. Michelle managed to catch him by an arm before he completely crumpled to the floor. 

The villains on the news always threw Spider-Man around like he weighed nothing. The poor guy was tossed into walls and fountains and commuter buses like a rag doll. Those events on top of his overall lithe appearance lead Michelle to assume that Spider-Man was a  _ light as a feather  _ sort of guy with a really high tolerance for pain. 

She was  _ completely  _ wrong. Though he was obviously in shape, the weight he did have was pure muscle. She almost collapsed beneath him in her pursuit but managed to haphazardly throw him onto the sofa. Spider-Man groaned when his injured leg and shoulder hit the cushions and Michelle cringed in sympathy. “She’s…” Spider-Man‘s voice came out short and muffled, sort of like he was talking through gritted teeth. “She’s supposed to be  _ here.  _ He said he  _ took her.  _ Is she here?” 

After assessing the situation and deciding that Spider-Man was in no shape to pose a threat to her, Michelle stepped forward. “Is  _ who  _ here? Who are you looking for?” 

“ _ April.  _ Gargan said he took her, said he-“ Spider-Man made a strangled noise, like what he needed to say was caught in his throat. Like it was too painful to say aloud. “He said he hurt my family. She’s the only family I’ve got so he  _ had  _ to be talking about her—“ 

Spider-Man... _ Spider-Man was looking for April?  _

He came to that apartment,  _ Peter Parker’s apartment,  _ because Scorpion told Spider-Man he was hurting his family. April was, apparently, Spider-Man’s family. 

And this place with baby bottles stacked on the counter and toys everywhere and ultrasound pictures on the fridge was, apparently, Spider-Man’s apartment. 

Spider-Man had always been a strong protector of his identity. He’d been active for almost a decade without the public finding out who he was. People had speculated, sure. News outlets posted almost monthly articles trying to identify  _ The Man Behind The Mask,  _ the Bugle included. Hell, Michelle had been forced to  _ write  _ one of those articles. It felt wrong, digging into a stranger’s life like that. Spider-Man sacrificed so much for New York and he wore a mask while he did it. 

All he wanted was to be left alone. 

Michelle sat carefully on the couch next to the superhero, careful not to jostle any of his injuries. He looked as if he’d barely registered her movement, the half-closed lenses of his mask aimed toward the ceiling. 

Those crazy reflexes of his must have been caught behind slow-firing neurons, because he didn’t reach out to stop Michelle as she hooked one finger beneath the neck of his mask and ever so carefully lifted it upward. 

The cool air of the apartment hit his flushed cheeks, momentarily shocking him out of his pain-hazed stupor. Spider-Man turned toward her, head rotating while his body stayed still. Michelle took his calm reaction as permission to continue and kept lifting. The edge of the mask skimmed over his lips, his nose, his hair. 

And then Michelle had the mask off, putting minimal thought into how she was probably wrinkling it where it was squeezed in her fist. 

Because beneath a sheen of sweat and obvious confusion, Peter Parker was staring back at her. 

“ _ April,”  _ he said again, this time with less energy and more urgency. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Is she here? Please, she has to be here.” 

Peter either didn’t know or didn’t care that Michelle had entered a complete and total downward spiral. Her muscles locked against her will and she could do nothing but stare at the man before her. She traced every detail of him; the way his hair was messy and a bit damp from being beneath the Spidey mask. The curve of his nose. His busted lip. The tone of his shoulders and torso she’d never noticed before seeing him in full body spandex. 

“Fine. I’ll go look for her myself.” 

Michelle was present enough to splay a hand across his chest and push him back against the couch. She noted the way he flinched when her fingers got a bit too close to his chest wound and she hurriedly pulled her hand away. “Y-you’re in no shape to do that. I’ll get her. Hold on.” 

She walked on numb feet to Peter’s bedroom and pulled April from her crib. Being so focused on the fact that  _ Spider-Man is April’s dad and Peter Parker from high school is Spider-Man and Spider-Man is a father,  _ she didn’t realize April wasn’t crying, and by the lack of wetness on her cheeks, hadn’t been for a while. She probably stopped the second she heard Peter’s voice coming from the living room. He had that effect on her; in almost any situation, if April was upset, all Peter had to do was talk for a while and she’d calm down. 

“Oh my god,  _ April _ . Hey, kiddo. Hello. Dad’s home. Yep, it’s me. Right here.” Peter wasted no time taking the baby from Michelle and cradling her close to the uninjured side of his chest. He was exercising obvious restraint in the way he gripped her; he looked like he wanted to squeeze her, actually, just to make sure she was real. But his hands were laid carefully across her back so she was flush against him without being uncomfortable. 

Michelle did nothing but stare at the two of them and the strange sight they posed. Spider-Man, de-masked, cradling a baby and slumped into a sofa like he’d never get up again if he didn’t have to. April didn’t seem inclined to move either, perfectly content leaning against Peter’s chest despite the fact that he was sweaty and covered in the debris one collects after fighting a super villain. 

Peter’s mouth didn’t stop moving for a long while, a continual stream of  _ you’re here, you’re okay, I’m here, we’re together, it’s okay,  _ flowing endlessly from his chapped lips. From the utter lack of distress visible on April’s face, it seemed as if Peter was reassuring himself more than anyone else. 

Despite the heartfelt father-daughter reunion taking place, Peter’s physical condition continued to quickly deteriorate. His leg wound, which had looked as if it were already starting to scab around the edges when he entered the apartment, was bleeding again. The puncture wound near his shoulder had gone from a green-tinged red to something that resembled an oil slick, all black and congealed and branching off like webs to the veins around the wound. 

“P-Peter.” Michelle wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to calling him that. Not while he was wearing the suit that belonged to NYC’s longest running hero. 

He turned toward her, but the movement was lazy. Like getting his head to pivot took everything out of him. He blinked once, very slowly. When his eyes opened again they stayed at half mast. “Emm Jaay.” The letters were enunciated and a sort of slurred around the edges. She’d been hoping he’d call her MJ again for weeks now. But not like this. 

“You're hurt. We need to do something.” She pointed down at his chest where his suit was stuck to his wound. “About that especially.” 

He just leaned his head against the back of the couch and readjusted his grip on April. Despite looking like he was about to pass out, Michelle had a feeling that anyone who tried to take his daughter from him right now would find the experience unpleasant. “The case.” 

“What case?” 

“Black case.” 

“You’ll have to be a little more specific.” 

“B-beneath…” his head started shifting to the side, slowly sliding toward his shoulder as he lost consciousness. 

“Beneath  _ what  _ Peter? C’mon, you gotta help me out here. I can’t do this on my own.” 

“Mmmmm. Bed.” And then he was out, mouth slightly agape as he went limp all over except where his arms encircled April in a locked grip. She was happily dozing against him, blissfully unaware of the danger her dad was in if Michelle couldn’t fix him in time. 

Michelle’s panic kicked up tenfold. She had goosebumps, but they weren’t from the breeze coming through the window that Peter had left open once again. “Black case. Okay. Yes. Under...bed?”

There was only one bed in the Apartment aside from April’s, and Michelle knew for a fact that nothing was stored under the crib. She hopped off the couch, trusting that Peter wouldn’t let go of April in his sleep (even if he did, he was so close to being horizontal that she probably wouldn’t slide) and made a beeline for the bedroom. She dropped to her knees at the side of the bed in roughly the same spot where she’d pulled the  _ WB Cmpnt  _ box out earlier. 

There was nothing beneath the bed except for the destroyed cardboard box and the black armored container with the thumbprint scanner.  _ A black case.  _ Michelle hurriedly slid it out into the open and, in a moment of impatience and no common sense, tried to pry it open with her fingers. Her efforts yielded no result, and the case stayed closed. 

A little red light was blinking steadily above the fingerprint scanner. She sloppily laid the pad of her index finger over the glass. The contraption buzzed and the red light blinked faster. “Oh, come  _ on!  _ Why won’t it…” Michelle took a moment to catch her breath. To think through the situation. This was a case with a print scanner owned by Peter Parker.  _ Who’s also Spider-Man. Holy shit. How did I never catch on? In high school, especially? It’s was so obvious, now that I look back— _

Michelle outwardly shook her head. “A mental train wreck for later. But this is the case. Peter’s case. Right. I’m an idiot.”

Peter and April were both out cold, though in different senses of the word, when Michelle returned to the living room with the black case in her arms. They seemed peaceful, Peter reclined so deeply on the couch that he looked like he might slide off. April didn’t appear to mind that the Spidey suit was rubbing dirty brown spots onto her onesie, or that the man wearing it was possibly dying beneath her. 

But Michelle minded quite a bit, actually, and decided that disturbing the peace was better than Peter  _ resting in peace.  _ She carefully peeled one of his hands off of April’s. He didn’t even flinch. 

April stirred a bit at the movement and Michelle used her free hand to run some soothing circles into the baby’s back, hoping she’d stay asleep long enough for Michelle to retrieve whatever Peter wanted her to get out of the case. She couldn’t imagine dealing with the stress of this situation and having April’s screams as the background music. She’d always imagined that the soundtrack to her life would be something fun. Or classic, at least. The Beatles. Maybe Etta James. Not babies crying and the sound of Peter Parker’s shallow, whispy breathing. 

His arm stayed heavy and slack as she gripped his index finger and pulled it on top of the scanner. The pressure of his touch registered, but the case just beeped and kept blinking that annoying little red light. It couldn’t find his fingerprint through the fabric of the suit. 

A cursory glance around his lower arms revealed no way to detach the gloves by themselves. But Michelle’s eyes were drawn to the thin black bands circling the space just above his hands, each with a metal connector rod of some sort that lead to a pressure plate in the center of his palm. 

And lodged in the middle of each one, right above the area where the connector rod met the main band, was one of the Oscorp vials. Michelle had been wracking her brain and her research for  _ weeks  _ trying to figure out the purpose of the vials, and here they were, connected to Peter’s high tech bracelet and full of the same tacky white substance she’d found in the others. 

It had been determined by fans and local scientists years ago that Spider-Man’s webs weren’t organic. The extent of his powers wasn’t publicly known, but the sheer frequency and reliability of his web usage was proof that he wasn’t making those things within himself. On the other hand, no one could figure out what he was using as a substitute. 

Michelle may have been a Journalism major, but she knew basic machinery. It was a simple contraption, really, but brilliant. Spider-Man shot his webs from his wrists, always after pressing his two middle fingers to his palm. The pressure plate connected to the bracelet was the trigger. The Oscorp vial, whatever it held, was connected to the pressure plate and was released upon request. 

Michelle had stolen one of Spider-Man’s web cartridges. And she had no idea. 

A feeling of distinct shame settled over her. What kind of investigative journalist was she if Spider-Man had been in front of her this whole time and she had no idea? She knew him when he first started his hero side-gig, all those years ago back at Midtown. She spent hours at a time in his home, with his daughter. Had  _ stolen  _ some of his Spider-Man equipment. And she had still been none the wiser. 

Her frustration with her own lack of observation was doing anything but dissipating, but the urgency of the situation at hand called for her attention. She could beat herself up later. Right now, she had to get Peter’s hand out of his suit. She felt around the web shooter until the tips of her fingers grazed a small notch in the band and she pressed evenly into the gap. The contraption popped apart at an invisible hinge, freeing Peter’s wrist, and then folded in on itself, shrinking until it was about the size of a flash drive, just big enough to keep a hold on the web cartridge. She pocketed the device so she wouldn’t lose it and moved onto the main suit. 

The time it took her to realize that the suit’s tightening function was triggered by the spider emblem on the chest seemed like hours, though it was probably only a few seconds. She used the precision of a surgeon to drag the suit down Peter’s upper half, peeling it away from the chest wound as she went. He twitched in his sleep when Michelle tugged a bit too hard on a thread stuck in the puncture, and she winced in sympathy. Once the suit was rolled down beneath the top of his chest and just above where April’s head was resting, Michelle had enough room to maneuver Peter’s arm out of the sleeve. She reminded herself that this was no time for her to realize how unbelievably  _ toned  _ Peter’s upper half was, and placed his exposed index finger on the case scanner. 

The light flashed green and the lid popped open with an audible  _ click _ . Something akin to the fog produced by dry ice billowed out and into the air, probably a preservative or a cooling agent for whatever was stored within. Michelle swiped her hand through it to clear her line of sight and eyed the container before her. 

Nestled inside a thick layer of foam padding were two syringes. They sort of looked like EpiPens; each was encased in plastic and had a needle hidden within the pressure release plate on the bottom. Slam the pen into someone’s outer thigh, and the medication would be injected immediately. But these were no average epinephrine shots. The syringes in Peter’s case had small, transparent viewing windows that offered a preview of whatever was inside. 

Both syringes were filled with something glowing a bright, fluorescent green. 

The syringe on the left had  _ Doc Conners 1.5  _ written across the plastic casing in Sharpie. The one on the right read  _ Scorpion Anti-Venom 2.0.  _ A little on the nose in Michelle’s opinion, but she was thankful for the clear labeling this time around. 

She pulled the anti-venom pen from the padding and popped the cap off the needle end, hand poised just over Peter’s thigh. 

Michelle gave herself the luxury of a deep breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Her hair had come loose of its ponytail, most of it dangling around her face in chunks. She couldn’t find the energy to care. 

“Man, I really hope this is what he wanted when he asked me to get the case.” 

And with only minuscule hesitation, Michelle drove the needle into Peter’s keg. 

His reaction was almost instantaneous. Peter popped up like a jack-in-the-box, spine going ramrod straight as he got a scarily sudden second wind. Michelle leapt forward almost the second he did, terrified that he’d forget about April and she’d fall to the floor, but the remaining arm he had around her kept her locked in place. She didn’t look happy about being woken, though. The space between her eyebrows was wrinkled in displeasure and she was frowning like she was about to start whining. 

“ _ Whew!  _ I forgot how much that stuff  _ kicks.  _ Jesus Christ.” 

“Peter! Are you okay?” 

“Fan-fuckin-tastic, Miss Jones. Amazing. Spectacular. Ultimate.” 

“Did I use the right syringe? You’re acting like I gave you crack.” 

Peter glanced at the open case and then directly back at Michelle. “Yep. For sure. Just a side effect of the anti-venom. Give me a  _ huge  _ dose of adrenaline. Among other things. Flushes the system, you know? Like Drano in a clogged pipe. Gets rid of all the nasty stuff.” The arm outside his suit sleeve swept dramatically up and down his form, like he was presenting himself at a middle school science fair and fully expected to win first prize. His eyes landed on his exposed limb and he frowned. “Why am I half naked?” 

“That’s my bad. I needed your fingerprint so I could open the case.” 

“You could have just used the voice command.” 

“Voice command?” 

“ _ Marc,  _ ID code SM2013. Close it up.” 

The case lid slammed closed on its own. Michelle heard the lock mechanism click into place. 

Peter wiggled his fingers like he’d done something magical. “Ta-da!” 

“ _ Marc?”  _

“Yep.  _ Mega Awesome Resource Case.  _ You could have just said his name. He’s very friendly.” 

“How was I supposed to know it did that?” 

“Fair point.” 

Just as fast at the serum had kicked in, Peter was physically deflating as the initial effects wore off. He sunk back into the couch a little, pulling April higher on his shoulder and wincing when it tugged at his injuries. 

“Coming down, now?” Michelle asked, voice laced with sarcasm to hide how nervous the last five minutes had left her. If she wasn’t so worried about Peter or so busy swimming around in her own thoughts, a pool of  _ Spider-Man is here  _ and  _ April’s probably hungry by now  _ and  _ Peter Parker always aced chemistry tests  _ among hundreds of other things, she might have passed out herself. 

“Definitely. Ouch. Those ten seconds were wonderful.” Peter shifted a little on the couch cushion. “Time for pain.” 

“You’ve taken this anti-venom before I assume?” 

“Once. Whipped it up after my first tangle with Gargan. Improved upon the formula this time, but still not perfect. A perfect one would have painkillers in it.”

Still full of anxious energy and searching for a way to occupy herself, Michelle stood off the couch and started heading toward the bathroom. She was prone to headaches and had taken to leaving some of her own meds in his cabinet weeks ago when she realized he never had any. “You want something? Tylenol? Advil?” 

Michelle heard Peter chuckle pitifully from the other room. “No, thanks. It won’t do anything. But could you bring the first aid kit? And the peroxide? Kit’s under the sink. Peroxide’s in the drawer on the left.” 

She grabbed the kit first, this time nicely labeled with a big red cross on the front. She stalled for a moment when she opened the peroxide drawer too quickly and heard something like glass sliding around at the back. The brown peroxide bottle was there like Peter had promised, but upon its removal Michelle scooped her hand toward the rear end of the drawer to gather whatever had been rolling around. 

Her cupped hand came back full of web cartridges. Five of them, if she didn’t miscount. Peter was so careless that he was literally storing Spidey supplies in his  _ bathroom _ and Michelle still hadn’t caught on. 

She blew a harsh breath out through her nose and dropped the cartridges back into the drawer, not bothering to shut it gently despite how the vials banged into one another. 

“Here, trade me,” Peter said when Michelle came back, carefully pulling April off his chest and passing her to Michelle. She took the sleeping baby with practiced ease and handed him the first aid supplies in return. Then she watched with moderate curiosity as he uncapped the hydrogen peroxide, wrapped his left hand in the fabric of his suit like he needed something to ground himself, and then dumped a large portion of the bottle directly over his chest wound. 

“Peter! Oh my god!” 

He didn’t respond, eyes firmly squeezed shut. He looked like he was trying very hard to not verbalize his pain. After the peroxide bubbles dissipated and the excess solution ran down his chest, tinged a sickly light pink from the dried blood, he tore open a pack of sterile gauze with his teeth and used the cloth to clean up around the edges of the injury. Then he opened a couple more and stacked them one over the other, effectively hiding his wound from view. He sealed the deal with a thick layer of medical tape to hold everything in place. 

Once the intensity of the moment had passed and Peter had moved onto wiping his lesser injuries clean with peroxide-soaked gauze, like the gash on his lower leg, Michelle allowed herself to breathe again. She hugged April closer to her and took comfort in the faded but ever-present smell of baby soap that radiated from her. “That was barbaric.” 

Peter’s following laugh was genuine and hearty, but his hands still shook as he closed the leg cut with a couple butterfly bandages. If he hadn’t been wearing a tattered Spider-Man suit that was covered in his own blood, Michelle could almost imagine him at the lunch table back at Midtown, cracking up over one of Ned Leed’s dumb jokes and spilling food on himself. 

“It tends to be. You should have seen me after Rhino. Instead of open wounds it was all broken bones. I looked like an abstract painting.” 

His openness was catching Michelle off guard. He spent ten years not telling a soul who he was, carefully guarding his secret, and now he’s suddenly willing to spill his guts to the babysitter? Granted, he probably assumed there was no point in hiding since he’d literally stumbled into the apartment dressed as Spider-Man and begging for his daughter. But she expected a  _ little  _ more hesitation despite the current predicament. 

Michelle scooted forward on the sofa. “I am  _ so  _ confused.” 

Peter’s temporary calm turned somber and Michelle regretted ruining the moment. He smiled sadly. “I assumed you would be. Should I talk, or should you ask?” 

“I’ll ask.” 

“Alright, then. Ask away.” 

Michelle barely knew where to start. What are you  _ supposed  _ to ask the guy who went from being a distant high school acquaintance to a recognized super freak? 

Eventually deciding that she had too many concerns to sift through at once, she took the practical approach and started working her way backward. She needed to establish the facts, decide what was happening  _ now,  _ and then learn more and more about the past until she had the full picture. 

“When did this,” she motioned to Peter from head to toe, “happen? How?” 

“You remember the Oscorp field trip?” 

“How could I forget? You puked on Cindy Moon’s shoes. And then didn’t come to school for days.” 

“Heh. Yeah. There was a reason for that.” He briefly but clearly explained how he ventured away from the class on the tour and ended up in a restricted lab. “One thing led to another and I walked out of Oscorp tower with a spider bite. Man, I was  _ so  _ sick. I seriously thought I was dying. A cop stopped me on the way home from the subway station because he thought I’d taken something. I might as well have. I couldn’t even see straight.” 

Back when it happened, Michelle had barely thought anything of it. Peter Parker blew chunks on a class field trip. It happens. She’d assumed it was the flu, or a stomach bug. Or nerves. After all, Liz Allen, an upperclassman, was helping chaperone. It was common knowledge (to Michelle anyways) that Peter had a hardcore crush on her. 

“That’s when the...The abilities started?” 

“A couple days later, yeah. My eyesight went from abysmal to perfect. I was, I guess I’d call it more  _ aware  _ than I used to be. Of people, objects around me. I sort of know something’s coming before it happens. But only if it’s dangerous. Not sure why it works that way.” 

Michelle tried to recall the hours of Spidey footage she’d watched over the years between the news and the internet. There was one video in particular that she always came back to; Spider-Man swinging down the street after a stolen armored truck, hopping off his web and in front of a stray sedan just before it struck the side of a bus and killed dozens of people. He’d caught it with his bare hands. “And the strength?” 

“That too. That was one of the more startling developments.” 

Michelle snorted. “What, the climbing on walls didn’t do it for you?” 

“It didn’t even start that way! At first I was sticking to everything! Doorknobs, sink handles—“

“That day you tried tapping Betty Brant on the shoulder and ripped her sweater—“

“It’s because I literally couldn’t let go! I’m telling you, MJ, it was rough.” 

There it was again.  _ MJ.  _ He said it so casually, like they’d been close pals for years and  _ Michelle _ was too formal for whatever dynamic they had going. An image of Peter from earlier was sitting behind her eyelids. It was the way he’d said  _ MJ,  _ the way he’d looked just before he passed out, big brown eyes trained on her like she would be his saving grace. 

“What about earlier? When you broke into your own apartment?” 

“I do that three or four times a week. What about it?” 

Michelle blinked. “You go out as Spider-Man four times a week?” 

“Why do you think I hired you?” 

That was the icing on Michelle’s self hatred cake. She could forgive herself for all the hints she missed in high school, or for not being able to identify the web cartridges at first glance. Even for blowing off Peter’s newly maximized physique as excessive exercise. But the fact that she didn’t realize Spider-Man was  _ coincidentally  _ most active on the nights she watched April was inexcusable. How did she kid herself into thinking that Peter working until ten on weeknights and most weekends was realistic? She never even bothered assuming that he was out doing something other than slaving away at Octavius industries. She was Spider-Nanny and  _ had absolutely no clue.  _

She waved a hand in front of her face, dispersing her self-deprecating thoughts. She could dig herself into a hole later. “Whatever. I’m talking about when you first came in. You were kinda freaking out.” 

April chose that moment to wake up and wriggle in Michelle’s arms. She didn’t cry, just blinked lazily and took in what surroundings she could see from the cradle of Michelle’s arms. 

Peter’s eyes were trained on his daughter. Michelle knew he loved her, but the sheer adoration seeping from his very being was something to behold. “Scorpion’s venom.” Peter tapped his finger just beside the gauze taped over his puncture wound. “Whatever poison he uses. It’s got a dash of neurotoxin. Enough to mess with heart rate and lung function. Hence the reason I passed out and didn’t die on the living room floor.” 

Michelle dipped her chin once, a sign for him to continue speaking. 

“That’s probably a tenth of the cocktail. The other nine tenths is a hallucinogen. It’s like tripping acid, but doing it while you’re walking through your worst nightmare. At least, I think it’s like tripping acid. I wouldn’t know.” 

Michelle had an idea of what it was like. Her freshman year roommate at Harvard was rather adventurous, and after a particularly stressful night of studying, Michelle joined in on her antics. The two of them sat on Michelle’s twin XL dorm bed, too zoned out to move much, and watched the walls melt for the rest of the evening. Michelle felt simultaneously like she could do anything and like everything was out of her reach, her own physical form far, far away. Her roommate had described new colors and euphoria and everything being way too loud. Michelle had just felt warm and distant. Like someone had uncorked her and she just drained out into the Earth. She never did it again. She hated feeling like she had no control. 

Her experience was unpleasant, but she couldn’t imagine having gone through it in one of her nightmares. Being a horror movie fanatic, her mind usually whipped up some twisted tales while she slept. She could barely stand them when she was sober. 

Peter cleared his throat. “You remember last Tuesday, I assume.” 

Yes, she did remember last Tuesday. April was sick and Peter stayed home to take care of her. He went to take a nap and woke up from a nightmare so severe that he ran out into the living room searching for her, eyes wide and chest heaving. “Yeah.” 

“The poison made me see that.” 

“ _ Oh.  _ I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.” 

“Scorpion doesn’t know I have a family. I hope not, at least. It was probably just a lucky guess. He was taunting me with it though, saying he’d taken my family and they were in danger. Logically I knew it was impossible. He was as clueless as everyone else. And I don’t have family  _ plural.  _ It’s just April.” Peter swallowed thickly. “But as soon as he said it, I was back in my dream. The world was tilted. I thought my head was gonna explode. I took Gargan down somehow, then ran around looking for April. In my head I’d traveled the length of Manhattan and found nothing. I had no idea I’d been running up and down the same city block until a pedestrian stopped me to ask if I was okay.” 

“And after that?” 

Peter shrugged. “I came back here. I was lucid enough to realize if April was anywhere, it would be home.” 

“You didn’t think I’d be here with her? And that I’d be finding out who you were?” 

“I thought April was in danger. I would have revealed myself to the entire city if it meant she’d be safe. But if I’m honest, I sort of forgot you’d be here.” 

Michelle twirled her hand around her head, feigning nonchalance. “Right. Because it’s not like I’m here more than I’m at my own home or anything.” 

“Hey, don’t blame me, blame the poison. You weren’t in my nightmare so you didn’t end up in the hallucination. Not my problem.” 

“I’m not even in your nightmares? C’mon, Peter, I thought you cared.” 

The crinkles that appeared at the corners of Peter’s eyes then were deep, defined. He obviously smiled a lot. Same with the divets that started at the edge of his nose and curled down around his mouth. Anyone could tell from his face alone that he was a happy guy. Or that he at least  _ pretended  _ to be a happy guy. 

But with the smile lines came the dark circles and the ever present aura of finality. Whatever had to be done, he’d do it. But Michelle had a feeling that no matter how much he did, the pain never faded. His own trauma and the traumas of others were one and the same. He never went numb to it; the pain just built until it was too much to bear and he cracked under the pressure. 

“Peter.” 

“MJ.” 

Michelle’s heart fluttered involuntarily. She gave it a moment to calm before trying to speak again. “Why did you become Spider-Man?” 

Peter wasn’t smiling anymore. “Does it matter?”

“I mean, I guess not. But you’ve gotta understand why I’m curious.” 

“I’m not sure what you mean.” 

“You work yourself ragged and then swing around the city at night getting the shit beat out of you. Not to mention that half the city hates you—“

“Thanks for reminding me.” 

“I’m serious, Peter. You’re doing something major here for absolutely nothing in return. Why? Why not just stop?” 

It seemed like Peter was trying to look anywhere but at her. He didn’t seem embarrassed, or ashamed; It was sort of like she’d brought up something sensitive that he didn’t know how to confront. “It’s way too late for April to not be in bed. Hand her over. Then I’ll talk.” Peter made grabby hands toward Michelle and she carefully passed the baby into his waiting arms. It was crazy for her to know that there was so much strength in them, the strength of a dozen men, but Peter still managed to cradle his daughter like she was made of glass. 

He shakily rose off the couch, groaning the entire way, and limped over to the kitchen. It took him a matter of seconds to measure out some powdered formula and pop a bottle into the warmer before dragging himself down the hall to his bedroom. She could hear him mumbling to April incoherently as she was awoken by the jostling of his arms. Michelle shut and locked the still-cracked living room window before following him. Peter’s poor heater was going to explode if he kept letting so much winter air inside.

He was humming an unfamiliar tune when Michelle met him in the bedroom. His attention was focused entirely on April, who was lying surprisingly still on the pad in front of him as he changed her into a fresh diaper and a soft onesie to combat the cold of the apartment. It was one of Michelle’s favorites, bright pink and covered in little silver stars. 

“My Uncle Ben,” Peter said quietly, so much so that Michelle didn’t realize he’d spoken until she saw him glance in her direction. He realized he’d been caught and went back to buttoning the snaps on April’s pajamas. “He meant a lot to me. I was with him and May longer than my own parents. He was my father, really.”

Michelle hated that that was the moment she chose to realize that he was basically walking around half naked. The Spidey suit was rolled down to his hips, sleeve tied around himself like a makeshift belt. Not to mention he was filthy, dust and sweat still caked to him from the battle that took place not even an hour before. Surely he wasn’t comfortable. Plus, his wounds needed a better rinse than some hydrogen peroxide dumped over the top. 

Michelle went to intercept April as Peter was lifting her to lean on his shoulder. “Why don’t you hand her to me,” Michelle proposed, “and I’ll grab her bottle. You hop in the shower. I’ll meet you in the bathroom.” 

Peter’s eyebrows shot upward at the unexpected interruption, as well as the suggestion. “In the bathroom?” 

Michelle’s cheeks went red. “Like, you get in the shower. And I’ll sit outside. And feed April.” 

“While I’m showering.” 

“There’s a curtain, isn’t there?” 

“Uhh…”

“You stink. And you need to go to bed as much as she does. Get in the shower and give me the baby.” 

Peter rolled his eyes, but there was no malice in the motion. “I save the city and the only thanks I get is Michelle Jones telling me I stink. And then she takes my daughter from me. I feel so loved.” 

“Just go.” 

He hesitated for a moment, then deflated a bit as he gave in and grabbed a wad of clothes from one of his dresser drawers. “Knock first,” he said, pointing an accusing finger in Michelle’s direction. 

She was already walking to the kitchen for April’s bottle by the time he was turning toward the bathroom. “Yes sir.” 

Once April was steadily working on her bottle and Michelle heard the shower start running, she knocked thrice on the outside of the closed bathroom door. 

“Yeah,” Peter said, voice muffled by the wood and water in the way. 

Michelle cracked the door carefully, both trying to make sure April’s bottle was still in her mouth and that she wasn’t walking in on Peter naked. The room was already full of steam, the mirror over the sink so fogged that only the vaguest outline of Michelle and April could be seen in its reflection. She tried not to think about how frizzy her hair was going to be after standing in the hot space. 

The Spider-Man suit was discarded casually on the floor like any other dirty set of clothes, the clean set he’d brought in with him sitting next to it. Michelle still hadn’t wrapped her head around that, didn’t know if she ever would. That Peter Parker was Spider-Man. It was like trying to predict the afterlife or grasp the vastness of space. It was all unexplored and frankly a little terrifying. 

Used bandages from Peter’s wounds were sitting on the edge of the sink. There was an alarming amount of blood on all of them. One of the larger squares, presumably from the chest wound, had smudges of dark green around the edges. 

Michelle cleared her throat to announce her presence, but had a strong feeling Peter didn’t need the warning. “Is your blood supposed to be green?” 

“Residue from the poison. It happened last time. It’ll clean itself out.” 

“Gross.” 

“Says the one who wanted to have a heart to heart while I take a shower. This is odd, you know.” 

“Hey, you needed a scrub, and I needed info. This is our compromise.” Michelle situated herself on top of the closed toilet seat and crossed her legs, April still in her arms and nursing a bottle. “You were talking about your uncle.” 

The bathroom was void of conversation for a moment, the sound of water hitting the shower bottom the only discernible noise. “Right,” Peter finally said, “Ben.” 

“You said he was like a father to you.” 

“Yeah. He was. Right after the spider bite, I, uh, wasn’t doing too hot. I was freaking out, really. I had no idea what was happening to me. Running around with senses so painfully heightened that I could barely breathe. I had powers I didn’t know how to control. I came home from school one day in a super bad mood, like, a _ bad  _ mood. I’d had a migraine all day. And the second I walked in the door Ben started chewing me out for something.” Peter might have laughed a little, a sad laugh, but Michelle couldn’t be sure. “I don’t even remember what it was about. I know I was in the wrong, though.” 

Ben never yelled.  _ Ever.  _ But he raised his voice that day, just enough to make my head hurt worse. I put my hands over my ears because it felt like my eyes were gonna pop out of my head. I guess he thought I was trying to ignore him. He shouted some more and I ended up running straight out the front door. Him and May were calling for me, telling me to come back. I didn’t listen, of course.” 

Michelle hasn’t expected him to recount the story for her in such detail. A part of her felt bad for making him relive something that was obviously painful. Another part of her felt like he was being so thorough because he’d never confronted the memory in the first place. He needed to bleed it out, get the nitty gritty details out of his system if he ever wanted to get past it. So she let him continue without interruption. 

“I basically just ran around most of the night. Climbed some stuff. Punched some stuff. I went to a convenience store to buy a snack since, you know, I was too busy moping around Queens to make it home for dinner. I was, like, three cents short. The cashier made a big deal out of it. Said it was company policy and he couldn’t just give out discounts. I got pissed and went to find something else I could afford. And out of nowhere, I mean,  _ nowhere,  _ this guy with a gun walks right through the door and tells the cashier to empty the register.” 

Michelle’s lungs started burning and she realized she’d been holding her breath. The circumstances of Peter’s uncle’s death had been a mystery at this point, but she could assume that the gun had something to do with it. 

“The guy takes the money and runs, and the cashier starts looking at me, and I’m just standing there holding a freaking bag of peanuts, and he tells me to go after the robber because he can’t get out from behind the cashier cage fast enough. I looked him right in the eyes and said,  _ sorry, not my policy,  _ and walked directly out the front door.” 

Michelle chose that moment to comment, just to make sure Peter knew she was still listening. She subconsciously thought about how long the shower had been running and if Peter had actually cleaned himself yet. How was he not out of hot water? “I mean, that’s reasonable. It’s not your job to chase criminals. At least, it wasn’t at the time.” 

“But a good person would have. And I didn’t. Ben always told me that if you had the power to help someone, you should. It was your responsibility. I was  _ overflowing  _ with power, MJ. I was so out of control that night that I probably could have punched the guy once and he would have ended up in the hospital. But I let him go purely because I was pissed off. At some point I finally decided to go home, and as I’m walking past a bodega around the corner from my house, I see Ben walking up the street. I guess he’d decided I’d had enough time to cool off and was out looking for me. But before I could get his attention, the same thief from the convenience store came barreling out of the bodega with his gun in his hand and knocked me flat. I hit the concrete pretty hard. Might have passed out. I just remember hearing a gunshot, and then when I got up, the thief was gone and Ben was lying on the sidewalk a few feet away, choking on his own blood.” 

“Jesus. That’s horrible.” Michelle never imagined the story would be so graphic. She assumed it would have been a car accident, maybe. Or a heart attack. Not a gunshot wound. And that Peter would have been there to witness the whole thing.

“I ran over to him and tried to stop the bleeding. He died  _ apologizing.  _ He just kept saying he was sorry, over and over and over.” 

The squeak of the faucet handle signaled that Peter was finally turning off the shower. The bathroom seemed to quiet without the ambient noise in the background. Michelle didn’t know how to proceed. 

Peter stuck a hand out from behind the shower curtain and yanked the towel off the rod. “So that,” he said in one long breath, “is why I became Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility. I have to go out there and save people. For Ben. I owe it to him.” 

He stepped out of the shower wrapped in his towel, wet hair dripping onto the tile floor. Michelle was still sitting on the toilet and instantly felt weird with her direct line of sight being the top of his hips. She stood quickly and tried to shimmy out of his way without jostling April, who’d finally dozed off after finishing her bottle. She made her way to the bathroom door and prepared to leave so Peter could get changed. 

His wounds looked raw and red in the light of the bathroom, but ultimately much cleaner than they had been before. “Thanks for telling me,” Michelle said softly, trying to convey how much his honesty meant to her without sounding dramatic. If there was one thing Michelle Jones could appreciate, both the journalist and emotional sides of her, it was a true story. “I’m sure that wasn’t easy.” 

He shook his head, sending water droplets splattering against the mirror. “No, it wasn’t. But it’s surprisingly nice having it out in the open. So, uh. Thank you. For listening.” 

With that Michelle opened the bathroom door and stepped into the hallway. “Get dressed, Peter. It’s been a long day for everyone.” 

* * *

While Peter finished his nighttime routine in the bathroom, Michelle settled April into her crib for the night and went around the apartment tidying up. The place was a mess, simply a result of the chaotic evening they’d all had. Peter’s black case was resealed and put back under his bed, as well as the Erlenmeyer flask she’d planned on using as a weapon. She washed some bottles, put stray baby toys in their bin in the living room. Picked up and trashed some dirty leftover gauze from when Peter cleaned his wounds. By the time she was done the place looked a little less like a tornado had run through it, and she called her efforts a success. 

Her mental and physical exhaustion truly caught up with her after she turned all the overhead lights in the apartment off, the only sources of illumination in the living room being the standing lamp by the couch and the little red light on April’s baby monitor. The sofa looked  _ way  _ too comfortable in that moment, all soft and worn in at just the right spots, and Michelle couldn’t resist the pull of the thick throw blanket thrown over the back (her favorite one in the apartment). She curled up beneath it, simply basking in the silence of the space, and found her eyelids quickly becoming heavy. 

“Hey, would you mind do— oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were asleep.” 

Michelle’s eyes shot open and suddenly she was sitting up, the sort of hyper aware you became when awoken from a light sleep. She hadn’t realized she nodded off. “It’s fine. Just resting. What’s up?” 

Peter’s hair wasn’t dripping anymore, and his face and teeth shined as if he’d just washed and brushed them. Clad in a pair of joggers and no shirt, his upper half was on full display. He was holding gauze in one hand, the bottle of peroxide and medical tape in the other. “I was wondering if you could help me with this. The anti-venom has completely worn off and this thing,” he nudged his chin down toward the wound in his shoulder, which wasn’t openly bleeding anymore, to Michelle’s great relief, “ _ really  _ hurts. I can’t bring myself to do it.” 

Even in her drowsy state Michelle could tell he was full of shit. If anything, it should have been easier for him to bandage his wounds now than it had been when they were open and oozing right after Michelle gave him the anti-venom. Not to mention that he had to have a crazy high pain tolerance; he was punched and kicked and thrown into buildings on an almost daily basis. But this was a rare moment of vulnerability, a sign of trust from him to her. So she patted the cushion next to her and Peter sat down, angled toward her so she’d have full access to the injury. 

“Are you sure this doesn’t need stitches?” Michelle asked as she dabbed at the wound with the peroxide one last time, then placed a thick wad of gauze over the area. 

“I heal fast. As long as it doesn’t get infected it should be fine in a couple days, maybe a week if the Scorpion venom prolongs the process.” 

Michelle ripped a piece of medical tape off the roll and stuck it to the top of the gauze pad. Peter winced minutely. “Sorry, sorry.” She lightened her touch as she fastened the other sides. 

The skin of Peter’s chest was warm to the touch, almost abnormally so, and she used it to heat her cold fingertips as she ghosted them around the edges of his wound under the guise of making sure the tape was secure. “I should go,” she said absently. She still hadn’t removed her hand. Peter’s dark eyes weren’t trained on her movements, but on her. Her overall form, her face. For a split second Michelle thought they might have darted down to her lips, but the action was so fleeting that she couldn’t be sure. 

“Yeah,” Peter said back, his response delayed. “It’s late. Though, I’m not sure I’m in the best shape to walk you to the subway.” 

The tension in the room was different, somehow. The air was less full of their usual awkward distance, the way they’d spent almost two months dancing around one another’s personal lives despite them being so heavily intertwined. 

Michelle didn’t know when the shift happened, if it was a result of newly shared trauma or if it had been there all along and the two of them were too blinded by social formalities to see it. But the awkward distance wasn’t that at all. It was open space. Room to grow. Room for endless possibilities. 

Taking a calculated risk and channeling all of the boldness she wished she’d had in high school, Michelle scooted forward on the sofa and situated one of her legs over Peter’s slowly, partly to make sure she didn’t aggravate any of his injuries and partly so he could tell her to stop if she’d misread the situation. 

“I can make it to the subway on my own,” she said. 

Peter’s hand drifted from the top of his own leg to hers, now halfway in his lap. His touch felt like fire through the work dress pants she still hadn’t taken off. “How about you dont?” 

Michelle cocked an eyebrow. “How about I don’t make it to the subway?” 

“You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“Then what  _ did  _ you mean?” 

“How about you don’t leave?” 

That’s the question Michelle had been waiting for, but hearing it aloud was a different thing entirely. 

Peter must have taken her silence as declination. “You absolutely don’t have to,” he said quickly. “And if you do, I’m not asking for anything. You going out alone right now just makes me nervous. On nights like this petty criminals are always inspired because they think I take down the big guys and then disappear, so they’re all out running around acting crazy, and I just don’t want you to get mugged or something—“

“Peter.” 

“Hmm?” His voice was caught behind a thick swallow. Michelle could see his throat bob. 

“I’ll stay.” The words were harder to force out than she thought they’d be, but once they were out and unretractable she knew she’d made the right choice. 

“Oh, good. That’s…”

In one final push of courage, she swung herself fully in Peter’s direction until both of her legs were bracketing the outside of his, and she settled directly over him in a straddle. “I hope you didn’t take all the hot water. I’d really like to take a shower.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me way too long. I’m so tired of looking at it. But I really wanted to make Peter a young(ish) dad, and now he is. So I can finally stop staying up until 3am writing! Very exciting.


End file.
